


We Sink

by ChristineQuizMachine



Series: Loved and Lost [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bad decisions were made all around, Barry isn’t always right, Cisco needs a hug, M/M, Possessive Thawne, Self-Destructive Behavior, The Legion of Doom is about to end this man’s whole career, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 19:36:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20102515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristineQuizMachine/pseuds/ChristineQuizMachine
Summary: “I have it on good authority that you’re in need of a speedster who can time travel. One who isn’t afraid of altering the past in order to save an innocent person’s life.”While still reeling from the revelation that Dante was alive in the Pre-Flashpoint timeline, Cisco gets a visit from Eobard Thawne, his mentor and ex-lover. Thawne’s got an offer that Cisco knows he should probably refuse, but he might just take it, anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Terrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terrie/gifts).

> This fic was written as part of the 2019 DCCW Rarepair Swap. Terrie, I know you didn’t ask for a 23,000-word novella, but you had the ill fortune to be paired with me, and I’m SUPER fucking extra, so dammit, you’re getting a novella.
> 
> Actually, I’d been wanting to do a ReverseVibe “seduced to the dark side” fic for a while, now, and your prompt basically gave me permission to take the plunge. Thanks for that; I really, REALLY hope you like this fic!
> 
> Takes place directly after “Killer Frost” (Flash S03E07) in an AU where the “Invasion!” crossover event never happens. Title comes from the song by Chvrches.

By the time Cisco got to his apartment, his knuckles were weeping blood onto the lining of his jacket.

In retrospect, repeatedly punching the wall of the elevator had probably not been the best way to express his anger. The constructive thing to do would have been to sit down and write an essay explaining how he was currently feeling and the ways in which he thought that Barry was being unreasonable and selfish. If he did that, then maybe they could discuss the matter like adults. He also could have gone over to Earth-2 to visit Harry and Jesse. While he wasn’t positive that they would side with him, they would at least be able to offer sympathetic ears, and it would be a chance to get away from everything, too.

But, in that moment, Cisco hadn’t _ wanted _ to be mature or constructive. Every ounce of him was just angry and sad and incredibly goddamn tired. So, as he rode the crappy elevator up to the fifth floor of his crappy apartment building, he’d suddenly slammed his fist against the crappy metal paneling on one wall. The audible _ bang _ , as well as the dull pain that surged through his entire arm, had actually felt… _ good _, somehow. And so he’d done it again. And again.

When the door finally opened, his fist was throbbing, and there was a dark red smear on the wall. He told himself that there was a visible dent, too, though that was probably just wishful thinking. Regardless, he didn’t want to get in trouble for making a mess, so he jammed his hand into his pocket and speed-walked to his apartment, hoping that he didn’t run into anyone along the way.

Fishing his keys out of his bag when he was missing most of the skin on his knuckles was tedious (and painful), but he eventually managed to do it. As he fiddled with the lock and doorknob, he wished that he’d bothered to stop somewhere and pick up dinner. He hadn’t been grocery shopping in nearly two weeks, and rustling up something from the odds and ends he had available was going to be annoying—especially now that he’d wrecked his hand.

Finally, he jerked the door open, sidestepping so that he could lock it as soon as he stepped over the threshold. When he turned around and faced his living room, he immediately noticed three things:

  * The lights were on in his apartment.
  * The whole place smelled like tomato sauce and spices.
  * Eobard Thawne was lounging on the couch, reading a magazine and drinking a glass of red wine.

The first two were a little unusual, but that last one was genuinely terrifying.

A high-pitched scream escaped from Cisco’s throat. He was half-expecting to suddenly feel a hand in his chest (or something equally deadly), but that didn’t happen. Instead, Thawne looked up at him and smiled in a way that could only be described as ‘predatory.’

“You’re finally home,” he said. He put the magazine on the table and took a sip of wine. “Dinner’s ready; I just need to heat it up.” A concerned frown fell over his features. “Oh, no…you’ve hurt your hand. What happened?”

_ Panic button _, Cisco thought. If he could just reach his phone, then he could call Barry. Without any consideration to subtlety or sneakiness, he plunged his hand into his pocket, and— 

He wasn’t fast enough. His fingers were just skimming over the device’s glass screen when a bolt of red light danced across his vision. Thawne didn’t appear to have moved, but Cisco’s phone had replaced the wine glass in his hand.

“Sorry, but I planned a nice dinner for _ two _,” Thawne said. “Let’s not bring Barry or the rest of Team Flash into this.” He tucked the phone into the pocket of his leather jacket and smiled again, his eyes still on Cisco.

Cisco swallowed. His gauntlets (and goggles) were in his bag; if Thawne could swipe his phone out of his pocket before Cisco could reach it, there was no way he’d be able to arm himself before the speedster could retaliate. He was stuck. “What…what do you want, Thawne?” he managed to say, taking a step backwards and flattening himself against the door.

Thawne snorted, like he thought that the question was ridiculous. “I want to have dinner. Isn’t that what I just said?” He gestured to the kitchen. “I made the spaghetti sauce that you like so much.”

“I’m not hungry,” Cisco said, because he wasn’t sure how else to respond. Of course, that was the moment that his stomach chose to growl. _ Traitor, _ he thought to himself bitterly.

“Cisco, stop being silly,” Thawne said. “Go clean yourself up, and then we can eat.” 

“And if I refuse?” Cisco asked, balling his hands into fists. His right hand throbbed with pain, but he did his best to ignore it.

“Then you’ll probably pass out from malnutrition,” Thawne said. He sighed, and he sounded almost sad. “When was the last time you had a decent meal?”

“This morning,” Cisco spat, even though he knew it was a lie.

Unfortunately, so did Thawne. “When I got here, your cupboards were practically bare, and your fridge was almost empty. I’m willing to bet that you’ve been surviving mostly on coffee and takeout.”

“I’ve…I’ve been going through a rough patch,” Cisco said stiffly. He exhaled; why were they even having this conversation? The whole thing seemed totally surreal.

“I know.” Thawne shook his head. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“Why do you think I want to talk to you?”

“Because I can help you.” 

“What makes you think I want _ your _ help? With, like, _ anything _?”

“Cisco,” Thawne said, and his voice was a now bit crisp. “I made a nice dinner for us. It would be a shame for my hard work to go to waste. So go clean up, put a bandage on your hand, and then come back here so we can eat.”

Cisco swallowed, then huffed a breath. He couldn’t call for help, and he couldn’t fight Thawne alone, so giving in to the man’s demands was probably his best bet for getting through this encounter alive. Wordlessly, he turned on his heel and stormed off towards the one bathroom in his apartment. 

Thawne had told him to “clean up,” and Cisco wasn’t sure exactly how far he was meant to take that instruction. He wasn’t about to be naked in the same apartment as a psychotic speedster, though, so showering was out of the question. He just washed his hands, applied disinfectant to his skinned knuckles, and wrapped the injured area in gauze. After hesitating for a moment, he also ran a brush through his hair a few times, just so he’d look slightly more presentable.

By the time he got back, Thawne had already set the table with forks and flatware and placed a large bowl of Caesar salad in the middle of the wooden surface. Thawne was fussing with something at the stove, but when he heard Cisco’s approach, he glanced over at him and smiled placidly again. “Go ahead and sit. Shall I pour you some wine? Or would you prefer water?”

“Water,” Cisco said shortly. He flopped down in his chair and folded his arms across his chest, half-daring Thawne to comment on his sullen demeanor.

But Thawne didn’t. He seemed perfectly cheerful as he poured Cisco a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge. He then walked back to the stove and, after a few more moments of bustling around in the kitchen, strolled over with a large serving bowl full of spaghetti and scooped some onto Cisco’s plate.

The smell washed over Cisco, and his stomach growled again. Thawne was evil, but warm food was warm food, and Cisco was starving. 

“I’ll let you serve your own salad, since I don’t know how hungry you are,” Thawne said. He scooped out some spaghetti for himself and placed the serving bowl in the middle of the table. Then he sat down, placed his napkin in his lap, and took a bite of his food. When he realized that Cisco hadn’t moved, he raised his eyebrows. “What’s the matter? Is your hand hurting too much for you to use your fork?”

“How do I know that you didn’t put anything dangerous in here? Like, nanites or arsenic?”

“If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it right when you walked through the door. Do you _ really _ think I’d be so crude as to poison your dinner?”

“I wouldn’t put _ anything _ past you, Thawne,” Cisco grunted.

“Cisco,” Thawne said, and the single word was a warning to behave…or else.

Cisco went back to appeasing him. He rolled a few spaghetti noodles onto his fork, and, with no small amount of trepidation, popped them into his mouth.

_ Ahhhhh _…

And just like that, warmth overcame him and sank into his bones. Thawne hadn’t been wrong when he asserted that Cisco loved his homemade spaghetti sauce. How could he _ not _ love it? It was rich and savory and so, _ so _ incredibly delicious. One time, he’d told Thawne—or, as the man was known back then, “Harrison Wells”—that he could eat an entire bowl of just the sauce like it was a thick stew, and he’d been completely serious.

_ “The key is to let it simmer,” _ Harrison had explained once as he adjusted the heat on the induction stove. _ “You have to give it at least two hours, but six hours is ideal.” _ When he’d seen Cisco’s surprise at this instruction, he’d laughed and rumpled Cisco’s hair. _ “It’s alright—patience doesn’t come naturally to me, either.” _

Despite his initial reservations, Cisco took another bite. And then a third. He couldn’t help it.

Harrison’s recipe made enough for three meals, so there was often at least one container of the stuff in his kitchen freezer, ready to be thawed and eaten at a moment’s notice. But Cisco had lived for lazy Sundays when Harrison actually made a batch. He would start cooking around noon, and Cisco would get to smell it simmering all afternoon while they hung out, watched movies, snuggled on the couch or in bed—

“You were smiling just now,” Thawne said. “Were you remembering how I used to make this for us?”

Cisco jolted. The memory faded, and he was back in his apartment, sitting across the table from a serial killer. “You…how do _ you _ know about that? You’re not him, you’re…you’re a time remnant. Aren’t you?”

Thawne pursed his lips, like he was having a hard time putting his thoughts into words. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“Right. And I’m too stupid to get it.”

“I have never, in my life, thought that you were ‘stupid,’” Thawne replied, frowning.

“But I’m too short-sighted to understand. That’s it, isn’t it?” Bile rose up in Cisco’s throat. “I’m not a speedster, so I can’t see the cosmic ramifications of what I want to know. I just have to casually accept what you’re telling me as the gospel truth. It’s not my place to question your will; I…” he stopped when he realized that he was rambling. With a newly minted flush in his cheeks, he looked down at his food.

If Thawne was insulted by Cisco’s outburst, though, he didn’t show it. Instead, he exhaled. “This isn’t about me, is it?”

Cisco refused to answer. He jammed an extra-large bite of spaghetti into his mouth so that he’d have an excuse to stay silent.

“Well, if it’s important to you, then I’ll try to explain it,” Thawne said. “Time Remnants are…well, we’re like clones, I suppose. We’re perfect, flesh-and-blood copies of the original. And while I’m not sure if ‘hive mind’ is the right term to describe it, there _ is _ a degree of shared consciousness.” He shifted his weight in his chair. “Barry Allen plucked me out of the year 2000, right when I was about to kill his mother. He dragged me forward to 2016 and held me captive for months. And when he realized that Flashpoint was _ not _ the utopia he’d envisioned, he decided to take me back to 2000 so that we could set things right.”

“Only, not really, because even the Pre-Flashpoint timeline was an alternate one. You changed things when you killed Nora Allen in the first place,” Cisco said, thinking out loud. 

Thawne smiled, and Cisco recoiled. “Correct. Anyway, the ‘real’ Thawne—the one that you knew—continued on the path that you remember. But _ I’ve _ been on the run ever since, trying to preserve my own existence. And…once Barry set me loose in 2016…I gained the memories of the me that died in 2015. It’s almost like two versions of Eobard Thawne got merged together.” He gestured to the serving dish. “ _ That’s _ how I remember that you liked my spaghetti sauce. Was that answer satisfactory for you, my Cisco?”

“You do realize that _ none _ of that makes any sense, right?” Cisco said flatly. “When Eddie Thawne killed himself, it should have wiped every trace of you off the face of the Earth. You should have _ never _ existed in the first place.” He also wanted to tell Thawne, point-blank, that he wasn’t _ his _ Cisco—not anymore.

“And yet, here I am. Corporeal enough to make dinner for us. The Speed Force is a harsh mistress, but she’s not without a sense of humor.” Thawne chuckled. “Here’s what you need to know: I remember what happened in the early days of S.T.A.R. Labs. I remember building the particle accelerator with you, Caitlin, Ronnie, and Hartley.” His eyes softened. “And I especially remember how you felt about me. How we felt about each other.”

Cisco felt his stomach clench. He forced himself to look down at his hands and said, “That was a long time ago.”

“It hasn’t even been two years for you. And for me…it’s like it’s been no time at all.” He leaned in closer. “We could pick up right where we left off.”

Cisco took a moment to process what he was saying. When it finally clicked, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to vomit up his dinner or punch Thawne in the face. “Seriously? _ That’s _ why you’re here? Because you want to _ rekindle our romance _, or something?” He let out a hollow laugh. “Yeah, okay, in the immortal words of Taylor Swift: ‘we are never ever, ever, ever getting back together. Like, ever.’”

Thawne had the nerve to seem disappointed at Cisco’s rejection. “Why not?”

“’Why not?’ Are you kidding?” He leaned back in his chair. “Let’s see. One, you’re an evil murderer. Two, you’re Barry’s mortal enemy. Three, the relationship we had was super inappropriate and unhealthy. And four…_ you killed me _. Am I forgetting anything?”

“Just that you’re an Aries and I’m a Capricorn. That makes us totally incompatible,” Thawne said. His eyes were gleaming.

Cisco glared at him. “So, all of this _ is _ a freaking joke to you. Good to know.”

“Fine, I’ll be serious.” Thawne put his fork down. “Do you want to hear my counterpoints for everything you’ve said?”

“No. I want you to leave.” He gestured to the door for emphasis.

Thawne exhaled. Again, he looked…disappointed. Not angry or smug or any other emotion that Cisco was used to seeing on his face. “That’s not _ all _ I came here to discuss, Cisco. Like I said: I want to help you.”

“And, like _ I _ said: I don’t want your help with anything.”

“Is that so? I have it on good authority that you’re in need of a speedster who can time travel. One who isn’t afraid of altering the past in order to save an innocent person’s life.”

The food in Cisco’s mouth seemed to turn into wet cement. All at once, his heart was racing and his ears were ringing. He forced himself to swallow. “What…what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Dante,” Thawne said, and hearing his brother’s name come out of Thawne’s mouth was like a slap to the cheek. “When I found out what happened to him, I was…confused. How could Dante Ramon have died in something as dull as a _ car accident _ when his brother was a member of Team Flash? Why hadn’t the Flash saved him?”

“How…how do you—?”

“Even if Barry had been too late to prevent Dante’s death, it would have been easy to just rewind time by a few hours and save him, then. Practically child’s play for all but the most inexperienced speedsters. And yet, he didn’t.” He swallowed another bite of spaghetti and dotted his lips with his napkin. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but there _ was _ a moment where I actually thought that maybe you’d told Barry not to save Dante. I know you and your brother had a very complicated relationship, so an opportunity to remove him from the picture—”

“Shut the hell up!” Cisco snarled, standing up so abruptly that his chair topped over backwards. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! I asked Barry over and over again…I _ begged him _ to save Dante! And he wouldn’t!” There was a heat building up in his eyes, but he tried to suppress it. He couldn’t bear the idea of crying in front of a supervillain. 

Thawne regarded him calmly. “Well, I figured that out eventually. Like I said, I only thought for a moment that you were behind this, and I’m ashamed I did. _ You _ wouldn’t let Dante die if you could help it. Unlike Barry.” He shook his head. “Leaving your brother dead when he could save him…what kind of a hero—no, what kind of a _ friend _ would do that?” 

Cisco recoiled slightly. He wanted to yell at Thawne to shut his lying mouth, that Barry _ was _ a hero, that he _ was _ Cisco’s friend…but he couldn’t. All of his anger and resentment towards Barry had wrapped its way around his body and rooted him in place. Every time he tried to think of a way out, the brambles held fast and cut his skin.

“Well, if Barry won’t do the right thing, _ I _ will.” Thawne gazed at Cisco resolutely. “Say the word, and I’ll go back in time and save Dante.”

All of the air in Cisco’s lungs left in a _ whoosh _. He gripped the table with his fingers and—even though he felt like he was staring directly into the sun—he looked Thawne in the eye. “You…what?”

“I’ll prevent his death from happening. Like I said, it would be easy. Is that what you want, my Cisco?”

Cisco’s hold on the table was so strong that the knuckles on his uninjured hand were turning white—and the knuckles on his injured hand were screaming in protest. “Why…why would you do that?”

“Because I love you.” Thawne said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like he didn’t think that those four words would be an iron weight on Cisco’s chest. 

Cisco tried to ignore the sensation of his ribs cracking and his lungs collapsing. “Bullshit. You don’t love me. I’m pretty sure you’re _ incapable _ of love.”

“I know you think I’m some kind of sociopath or narcissist, and, well, you’re probably right,” Thawne said, shrugging. “But I do love you. I love you as much as someone like me is _ capable _ of loving someone. And because of that, I would do anything to make you happy.”

“Then _ leave _,” Cisco spat. “If you want to make me happy, then get out.”

Thawne opened his mouth to protest, but their conversation was interrupted by some kind of electronic noise—a trilling beep that sounded almost like a phone ringing. Abruptly, the man’s demeanor changed; he straightened up and peered at his wrist. He was wearing a watch-like device, and that seemed to be the source of the noise.

He glanced at Cisco, groaning in frustration. “Well, you’re getting your wish. I hate to eat and run, but I really need to go now.”

“Why?” Cisco huffed. “You got a strict schedule of people to stalk, or something?”

“No. But the truth’s too long a story to get into right now.” He took one last bite of spaghetti and wiped his mouth again. “Just…think about my offer, alright, Cisco? I’ll be back later to get your answer.”

“My answer is ‘no,’” Cisco said, though the words seemed to scrape his throat as they came out.

“I said ‘think about it,’” Thawne replied. “There’s ice cream in the freezer. Chocolate cherry, your favorite.” And, in a burst of red light, he was gone, and Cisco’s confiscated phone was face-down on the table.

Cisco stood there for a few more seconds, staring at Thawne’s empty chair. He was still trying to get his breathing under control. Eventually, he righted his own chair and sat down again.

_ Thawne’s a lying liar who lies. And he’s a master manipulator, _ he told himself. _ You can’t listen to what he says _. He shoveled more food into his mouth, but after his conversation with Thawne, he didn’t really have the energy to eat. And even though he knew he was probably just imagining it, he thought that the whole kitchen now smelled uncomfortably of ozone.

Thawne had apparently done the dishes and wiped down the stove and counters before Cisco had arrived at the apartment, so the only thing left for him to do was scoop the leftover spaghetti and salad into containers and stick them in the fridge. He then peeked into the freezer. Sure enough, mixed in with the rest of the frozen entrées and the ice cubes, there were two more large containers of spaghetti sauce and a pint of chocolate-cherry ice cream.

He was just getting the urge to grab a spoon and dig into the ice cream when he noticed something on the counter next to the stove: a pair of leather gloves.

They were definitely Thawne’s; he’d been wearing a black leather jacket, matching gloves, dark jeans, and black boots when Cisco first walked through the door. He must have taken the gloves off while he was serving dinner and then forgotten to grab them before he zipped out. Or maybe he’d left them behind on purpose so Cisco couldn’t tell himself that he’d imagined their whole encounter.

He thought about walking into the hallway and throwing them into the trash chute—or pitching them out the window into the street. He could even open a breach to Earth-2 and toss them in so that he and the gloves would no longer even be on the same plane of existence. He also thought about calling Barry to tell him what happened.

In the end, he did nothing except brush his teeth and go to bed. The gloves stayed on the counter with the drying dishes, and Cisco stayed alone with his thoughts.

***

The next morning, Cisco’s hand was hurting so badly that he seriously wondered if he’d broken any bones. He really wished he’d had the foresight to punch the wall with his left hand instead of his right, but then again, if he’d thought the action through, he probably wouldn’t have done it at all. It was a stupid, embarrassing injury—totally pointless. After taking off the bandage, cleaning the wound, and wrapping it up again, he decided that, if the pain got any worse, he’d have Caitlin examine his hand for real.

Provided, of course, that Caitlin was actually Caitlin, and she wasn’t doing her whole “Wind Jill Factor” bit again. Not that she had any choice in the matter. It was just another way that Barry had screwed up their lives in an attempt to make things better for himself.

** _“What kind of a hero…no, what kind of a _ ** **friend** ** _ would do that?” _ **Thawne’s words were playing on repeat in his brain. And even though he knew that trusting the Reverse-Flash was a total rookie move, Cisco could definitely see some wisdom in the man’s question.

It didn’t help that Barry was already there when he arrived at S.T.A.R. Labs, hanging out in the Cortex and going over some kind of test results with Wally and Caitlin. For a moment, Cisco was confused, as Barry was usually at his day job by that time in the morning—Cisco had actually gotten to the labs a little later than usual to minimize the chance that they’d cross paths. But then he remembered that Barry had quit the CCPD in order to keep Julian Albert from spilling the beans about Caitlin. Which would have been super noble and admirable, if—again—the whole thing hadn’t been Barry’s damn fault in the first place.

The bottom line was that Cisco was probably going to be seeing a _ lot _ of Barry in the next few days. Great. At a time when he was absolutely sick of him, he was going to be force-fed extra servings of the guy. Cisco wasn’t sure how he was going to get through this without developing an ulcer.

When the others noticed and greeted him, Cisco nodded curtly, then turned on his heel and walked to his workshop. Unless they got some kind of meta alert, he could probably get away with spending most of his time there. Sure enough, they all left him alone for a little while. Caitlin eventually came in with the explanation that she was going to order supplies and wanted to know if he needed anything. And that conversation went fine until she asked him what happened to his hand. 

“I burned myself while I was making dinner last night.” When he saw Caitlin’s skeptical expression, he folded his arms across his chest. “What? I cook sometimes.” 

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “That…doesn’t look like a cooking burn pattern. Unless you were punching your stove?”

“Will you just drop it, Caitlin?” Cisco said.

She exhaled. “Cisco, I know that you’re mad at Barry right now, but—”

“We’re _ not _ having this conversation,” Cisco said, and even he was surprised at how stony he sounded. Of all the people on the team, Caitlin was the one he butted heads with the least. Being standoffish to her felt wrong. Well, whatever—he’d add _ that _ to the list of ways in which his life had gone completely sideways.

Caitlin looked like she wanted to say more, but eventually, she just sighed and walked away from him. And Caitlin wound up being the only visitor he had for the rest of the morning. It wasn’t until he was starting to think about lunch when Barry finally wandered into the room.

“Hey,” Barry said, a hopeful smile on his face.

“Did you need something?” Cisco asked. He continued to tinker with his gauntlet, hardly glancing at his former best friend.

“Oh, no,” Barry said, sounding a bit stung by Cisco’s coldness. “I…I just came by here to check on you. We didn’t really talk when you got in in this morning, and you’ve kinda been holed up here for a while.”

“I’m fine,” Cisco said shortly. “Just another day at S.T.A.R. Labs.” 

“Uh…okay,” Barry said, wringing his hands like he wasn’t sure what else to say. That was when he seemed to notice Cisco’s injury. “What happened?” he asked, pointing at the bandages.

“I hit the bag a little too hard at my boxing class,” Cisco replied sarcastically. “I need to fire Chaz; I can’t believe he didn’t tell me before we started that I hadn’t wrapped my hands the right way. What kind of personal trainer _ is _ he?”

For a moment, Barry looked perplexed. Then, he put a smile on his face. “Not a good one, that’s for sure. Ya know, Joe used to box, and he’d probably charge you a lot less than whatever Chaz is asking for. So, maybe—”

“Barry, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then don’t guess,” Cisco huffed. He wasn’t even sure why he’d made up that story. Maybe he’d _ wanted _ to catch Barry in a lie?

“What do you mean?”

He put down his gauntlet. “I don’t _ take _ a boxing class. And I can barely afford a gym membership, let alone a personal trainer.” Suddenly, his anger flared up. “Oh, wait, _ did _ I take a boxing class in the Pre-Flashpoint timeline? _ Did _ I have a personal trainer? I wouldn’t know, so you’ll have to fill me in.”

Barry winced. “I didn’t come here to fight with you, Cisco. And I asked about your hand because I wanted to know if you’re okay.”

“Yeah, sure, I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

An awkward silence filled the room. Barry continued to appear wounded, and Cisco had to resist the impulse to make a joke or say _ something _ to lighten the tension. As long as Cisco could remember, being silly or light-hearted had been his go-to strategy for smoothing over uncomfortable interactions (or hiding his own pain). But he was tired of playing peacemaker. Just like he was tired of giving Barry Allen a pass on his bad behavior just because the guy “had good intentions” or whatever.

Finally, Cisco said, “Shouldn’t you be training with Wally?” Translation: _ Will you please get out of my workshop? _

Barry missed the subtext. “We’re taking a break right now. He’d probably run until he passed out if I let him, so I made him stop to refuel.”

“Right. I’ll add ‘start making twice as many speedster energy bars’ to my to-do list,” Cisco grumbled.

Again, Barry flinched. “Well, I mean, you don’t have to rush. We’ve got plenty stored up for now. And...if you’ll walk me through it, I’m sure _ I _ could start making them.” He smiled weakly. “I don’t want to make extra work for you, and I’m sure Wally doesn’t, either.”

“That’s…considerate of you,” Cisco said carefully.

Barry’s smile widened. “Having two speedsters on the Earth-1 team is gonna take some getting used to. But since I’m _ technically _ out of job right now, I can probably start helping with the day-to-day stuff around here a lot more.”

“I guess,” Cisco admitted.

“So, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you.”

“Oh, actually, there is,” Cisco said. He looked Barry in the eye. “Go back in time and save Dante’s life.”

Barry’s expression fell like a balloon deflating—or a Jenga tower collapsing. That wasn’t a surprise; Cisco had broached the subject with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And, unfortunately, Cisco also wasn’t surprised by Barry’s response: “Cisco, you _ know _ I can’t do that.”

“No,” Cisco said, a bit shortly. “I know that you _ can _ do it, but you just won’t. Big difference.” He flexed his fingers, letting the pain in his hand keep him grounded.

“I’ve already told you why it’s too dangerous. When you mess with time—”

“In case you haven’t noticed, time’s _ already _ messed with me,” Cisco snapped. “Dante and I finally fixed our relationship after we spent _ years _ fighting each other. We were supposed to have decades to enjoy being brothers again. But no, I only got a few months with him before he died because some selfish asshole decided to drink and drive.”

“If I went back in time and changed something, I could screw up the present even more than I already have. I’m sorry about Dante; I really am. And I’m here if you want to talk. But that’s all I can give you.”

Cisco wanted to tell Barry about Thawne. He wanted to tell him every-freaking-thing about Thawne, from just how close his and Cisco’s relationship had once been to how the man’s faces (plural) still sometimes crept into his mind when he was lonely or sad, all the way up to the fact that Thawne had paid him a visit the night before and offered him his heart’s desire. 

But he couldn’t. It was all inside of him, rotting, and he couldn’t get it out. It was easier to just bury it even deeper. “Barry…” he said, and his voice broke. “Barry, I’m begging you. Just this once._ Please. _”

The look on Barry’s face was one of agony. Still, he exhaled and said, “No, Cisco. And…my answer’s not going to change, so stop asking.”

** _“No, Cisco.”_ **

** _“Well, if Barry won’t do the right thing,_ ** ** I ** ** _will.”_ **

** _“No, Cisco.”_ **

** _“I would do anything to make you happy.”_ **

The next thing Cisco knew, he was throwing his stuff into his bag haphazardly, never mind the damage it might cause.

“What are you doing?” Barry asked.

“I’m going home,” Cisco heard himself say. “I need space.”

“Cisco, don’t leave. Not like this,” Barry said. He was pleading, as if Cisco was the one hurting their friendship. And that just made Cisco angrier.

“I can’t stay. Not like this,” Cisco replied.

Barry exhaled. “Are…are you going to be here tomorrow?”

“Maybe? I don’t know.” And he was being honest.

Barry could have stopped him. He could have apologized, could have promised that he would fix everything. Instead, he just said, “Okay. I’ll tell Caitlin and Wally that you were feeling sick.”

“Yeah…sick of _ you _,” Cisco spat. He was being petty and childish on purpose—if Dante had been there, he would have been embarrassed by his baby brother’s behavior.

(They’d been standing in Cisco’s workshop when they hugged and promised to do better. How could that have only been a few months ago when it felt like a lifetime? Why did he feel like a completely different person now?)

Barry physically recoiled at that. And he didn’t say another word as Cisco grabbed his bag and walked out of his workshop, into the hallway, and—eventually—out of S.T.A.R. Labs completely.

It was barely 1 p.m. when he got home, but he was still exhausted. So he stripped off his jeans and socks, closed the black-out curtains in his room, and climbed into bed. Right when he walked in, he’d checked the kitchen counter and found that Thawne’s gloves were still sitting there. As he closed his eyes, though, he realized that he didn’t really know what to do with that information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thawne's explanation of how time remnants "work", as well as what happened to him during Barry's attempts to restore the timeline, might not be 100% correct. Please just accept it for the sake of this particular story; I tried to understand this stuff to the best of my ability, and I'm STILL a teeny bit confused, here...


	2. Chapter 2

Thawne was back when Cisco woke up.

Somehow, Cisco was aware of this fact before he even saw him. It was just a feeling. He’d gotten used to folks from different earths vibrating at different frequencies than people from Earth-1; he wondered, then, if people from different eras “felt” different from people in the present. Maybe vibrations changed from year to year, but it was so subtle that you couldn’t tell unless someone had made a huge time jump?

Whatever the cause, when he got out of bed, walked to the room’s doorway, and poked his head out, he was _ not _ surprised to see Thawne sitting on his couch. Once again, he seemed perfectly relaxed, his arms spread out over the back of the sofa and the tiniest of slouches in his shoulders. The TV was on, and Thawne’s attention seemed completely occupied by the action unfolding on the screen.

Cisco’s phone was on his nightstand. If he wanted to, he could probably tiptoe back and hit his panic button before Thawne could snatch the device out of his hand again. He _ knew _ that that was the appropriate response to finding the Reverse-Flash in his living room for the second time in two days.

But…in truth…Cisco didn’t _ want _ to talk to Barry. He sure as hell didn’t want to ask him for help. Thawne was officially Cisco’s problem to deal with, so he’d resolve the matter as he saw fit. And he didn’t have the energy to put up a fight. So instead, he walked over to the back of the couch. “What’re you watching?” he asked, his voice casual.

“_ Black Mirror _,” Thawne replied, and as soon as he said that, Cisco was pretty sure he knew which episode it was. After pressing ‘Pause’ on the remote, Thawne turned to him. “There was one revival of this show in the 2060s and another about 30 years before I was born. I’d never seen the original run before I got trapped in this time period, though. It’s not bad.”

“Yeah, it’s actually pretty good.” He glanced at the TV. “I haven’t watched Season 3 yet. I know it dropped about a month ago, but I haven’t really been in the mood for super-bleak media lately.”

“No, I imagine you haven’t. Fortunately, this episode is from Season 2, so you don’t have to worry about spoilers.” He looked Cisco up and down. “Are you alright?”

Cisco grunted. “Ya know, people keep asking me that question, and I have no idea how to answer it anymore.”

“I mean, do you feel sick?” Thawne said. “You went to bed in the middle of the afternoon. That doesn’t seem like you.”

“I’m not sick; I’m just…tired,” Cisco said, sighing.

“You should eat some dinner. It’s nearly 7.”

If he’d napped for almost six hours, why was he still so goddamn exhausted? “I’m not hungry.”

To Cisco’s surprise, Thawne smiled. And, even though Eobard Thawne looked nothing like Harrison Wells (save for their eye color), it was the exact same smile that Cisco remembered from years ago—identical muscle movements on a completely different face. “Do you remember what we used to do when you were feeling sad and tired?” he asked.

“Have sex?” Cisco guessed flatly. That smile had caught him off-guard, and he was struggling to keep his wits about him.

Thawne snorted. “No. Well, yes, but I was thinking about something else.” He smiled again. “We’d sit together on my living room couch, and you’d put your head in my lap so I could stroke your hair. And if I thought you needed to eat but you didn’t want to, I’d make us a fruit and cheese platter, and you’d eat little bites out of my hand.”

Cisco felt heat rise in his cheeks. Yes, he definitely remembered that particular activity. He also remembered that it tended to involve a lot of licking and slurping, too. It was always under the guise of removing juice, grease, yogurt sauce, or—on rare occasions—chocolate off of Thawne’s fingers, but there was definitely a reason that Thawne let Cisco clean his hands rather than simply using a napkin. And Cisco had loved how dreamy-eyed “Harrison” would get when he put his thumb on Cisco’s lower lip and Cisco responded by opening up and sucking on the digit like a baby. More often than not, it was a promise of things to come.

He fixed his eyes on the carpet. “Well, I’m a little short on cheese and fruit right now,” he said gruffly. “Bummer. Guess I’ll just—”

Once again, there was a flash of red light, and Thawne didn’t seem to have moved. But suddenly, he had a plate in his hand, one piled high with different kinds of finger foods. He also had a smug grin on his face, like he expected this surprise to go over well. 

Cisco sighed in exasperation. “You _ brought _ a fruit and cheese platter. Of course you did.”

“I thought you might be hungry after you woke up,” Thawne said. He was still smirking.

“Do you also think that if you keep feeding me, I’ll start to trust you? Because, news flash: I’m not a dog.”

“Well, they say that the fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Thawne replied. He set the plate down on the side table next to the couch.

“You sure it’s not with a vibrating hand through the chest?” Cisco spat out before he could stop himself.

Thawne’s face crumpled into a scowl, and for a moment, Cisco thought that he was going to punch him. But then he closed his eyes, exhaled, and opened his eyes again. Clearly, Cisco was trying his patience, and he was doing his best to stay calm. “I’ll admit that I don’t remember that erased day, so I have no way of knowing _ exactly _ what happened. One thing I’m certain of, though, is that I had a contingency plan.”

“Yeah, it was to kill me so I wouldn’t rat you out,” Cisco said. “I always figured that _ that _ was your Plan B. Unless you’d planned to kill me all along?”

“No, I had a contingency plan in the event of your death, whether it was at my hand or someone else’s,” Thawne said sharply. “You dying would have served as a motivator for Barry to get faster, and eventually, I would have been able to use his speed to return to the 22nd century. Once I had access to the proper tech and tools to master time travel on my own, I would have gone _ back _ to 2014 and spirited you away before you died. Simple enough.”

Cisco stared at him for a second. Then, a bark of hysterical laughter escaped from his throat. “Wow. Okay. I’m not even sure I can _ begin _ to explain all of the paradoxes pulling that stunt would create. I’m pretty sure you would, like, break time. Maybe create a singularity, to boot. You’re supposed to be a genius; how can you not realize that?”

“Oh, I _ do _ realize that. I just think that you’re worth it.”

“What?”

“I would twist the fabric of reality inside-out for you, Cisco. And I would punch holes in the space-time continuum. _ That’s _ how much I love you. Any potential negative outcomes would be well worth risk if it meant making you happy and whole.”

The iron weight was back on Cisco’s chest. He forced himself to turn away from Thawne. “That’s funny. According to Barry, my happiness isn’t worth _ any _ possible risks to the present.”

“Barry Allen and I have different priorities, then. And he’s never been very good at seeing the bigger picture.” He turned back to the TV and resumed the episode of _ Black Mirror _.

Cisco sighed. Thawne apparently wasn’t planning to leave anytime soon, and Cisco wasn’t sure how he could make him. _ Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join em, _ he thought to himself, and he came around to sit on the couch. After a few seconds, Cisco leaned down so that his cheek was pressed against Thawne’s denim-clad thigh.

For a moment, Thawne acted genuinely surprised by Cisco’s actions. Then, he chuckled. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to bite your dick off,” Cisco replied sarcastically. “What do you _ think _ I’m doing? I’m hungry, and you seemed pretty interested in feeding me and stroking my hair. So, do it.”

“I forgot what a brat you could be when you were in a bad mood,” Thawne said, laughing. “But, oh well. I’ll just be happy that we’ve made progress.’” Without moving his lower half, he reached for the plate of food and plucked off a fat, green grape. He brought the fruit to Cisco’s lips and, obediently, Cisco opened his mouth so Thawne could deposit it on his tongue. Once he’d chewed and swallowed, he opened his mouth again, feeling a little like a baby bird.

Thawne laughed again. “If I’d known you were so desperate for food, I would have brought you dinner in bed.”

“You gonna feed me, or should I just go microwave myself some spaghetti?”

Thawne responded by giving Cisco a piece of cheese, then another grape, then a sliced strawberry, and then another cheese cube. They continued like that until the episode of _ Black Mirror _ was over and Thawne was expressing surprise (and delight) at the story’s twist ending.

By the time the credits were rolling, Cisco’s belly was full, so he silently turned away when Thawne tried to give him more food. And instead of letting Netflix’s auto-play feature start the next episode of the show, Thawne used the remote to switch off the TV. He then busied himself with stroking Cisco’s hair, bracing himself against the couch with his other hand.

In the back of his mind, Cisco knew that he shouldn’t have allowed this. He shouldn’t have sat down on the couch, he shouldn’t have let Thawne feed him, and he _ definitely _ should not have allowed Thawne to pet him like a cat. In the long-term, nothing positive could come out of any of it. But the truth was that, in the moment, it felt _ good _ to be treated like he mattered, like he was the most important person in the world. Maybe it was selfish. So what? He’d been trying to make the world a better place for as long as he could remember. Wasn’t he entitled to a little selfishness?

“Will you really save Dante?” Cisco asked, before he could chicken out.

“Of course I will,” Thawne replied. He looked down at him. “Is that what you want, my Cisco?”

Cisco averted his eyes. He didn’t know what he wanted. Or, rather he _ did _, but he was afraid to admit it.

“I won’t ask you for anything in return.” He tucked a lock of Cisco’s hair behind his ear. “However, I _ do _ have a single condition.”

“I knew it,” Cisco groaned, sitting up. He looked the other man in the eye. “What is it?”

“You have to _ remember _ that he died.”

Cisco’s breath caught in his throat. Of all the things that Thawne could have said, he hadn’t expected _ that _.

“You see,” Thawne explained, “I could go back to the past right now and save Dante’s life. It would be like it never happened—you wouldn’t remember having ever lost him.” He reached for Cisco’s hands and squeezed them in his own. “But I _ need _ for you to remember. This grief you’re feeling...the anger you have in your heart…” He leaned in closer. “As much as it pains me to see you like this…you _ have _ to hold onto your emotions. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Cisco admitted. Losing Dante had been the worst pain he’d ever endured, and he wouldn’t have wished it on his worst enemy. Forcing Cisco to remember that Dante had died seemed needlessly cruel.

Thawne exhaled. “Well, you will. When the time is right…you’ll understand everything.” He leaned back again, putting some distance between them. “So…what’s your decision?”

Cisco felt like he was standing on edge of a cliff. The way he saw it, he had two options: he could turn around and go back the way he came, back to safety and familiarity and the people he’d come to consider his family. Or, he could do a backflip off the edge and hope that the end result would be something other than a broken neck.

He remembered how Kendra Saunders had once thrown herself off a building in hopes of unlocking her powers. That incident had been the beginning of the end of their relationship, but at least he’d gotten to see her fly. At least _ she’d _ faced her fears in order to do what needed to be done. 

Perhaps it was time for Cisco to do what needed to be done, as well. “Okay,” he said, finally.

“Okay, what?” Thawne replied. “I need to hear you say it.”

“I…want you to save Dante.” Cisco bit his lip. “I want…I want for you to go back in time and prevent Dante from dying. Please?”

Thawne’s mouth curved into a smile, and Cisco couldn’t stop the shiver that rolled down his spine. But suddenly, that chill was replaced by a sharp sting in his neck. He reached up and touched the spot where he’d felt the pain, and when he inspected his fingers, he saw a tiny drop of blood. He looked up at Thawne again. “Did…did I have a bug on me?” he asked. “It felt like a mosquito…”

His voice trailed off when he realized that Thawne was holding something in his hand. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what it was, but then he recognized it as an injector pen—a spring-loaded syringe to deliver medicine. Or anything else.

Panic roared through his body. Thawne had drugged him. He made a move to jump off of the couch, but the whole room suddenly went topsy-turvy, and he wasn’t sure which direction to lean.

Thawne grabbed Cisco by the front of his shirt. He wasn’t smiling anymore, but he didn’t seem at all concerned, either. “Easy, easy…”

“Bastard,” Cisco managed to say. He was glaring at Thawne through a kaleidoscope—too many faces to count. “Rotten…lying…bastard.”

“Shhhh,” Thawne said. “It’ll be alright.”

The man’s blue eyes were the last thing Cisco saw before the darkness closed in. 

***

When Cisco woke up, his head was in Thawne’s lap again. They were sitting on the floor in what looked like a warehouse storage room, and Thawne was leaning against the wall while he stroked Cisco’s hair. 

“Hello again, beautiful,” he said serenely. “I was wondering if I’d have to kiss you before you came back to me.”

Instinctively, Cisco jerked away; his lizard brain was screaming at him to put some distance between himself and the Reverse-Flash. But when he tried, he simply crashed to the marble floor, smacking his cheekbone on the hard surface. He let out an audible grunt and tried to get up to his hands and knees, but he was so dizzy that he couldn’t gather his bearings, and he wound up flat on his back. 

Thawne seemed to misunderstand why Cisco was thrashing, and he hooked his arms underneath Cisco’s armpits. “Easy, easy…” he said once more, pulling Cisco back into his lap. “You’re a little disoriented right now because of the anesthetic. It’ll pass in a few moments, I promise.”

“Get…away…from me!” Cisco managed to snarl. “You evil…you sack of…!”

“Stop flailing, Cisco,” Thawne said. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Yikes, _ someone’s _ having a bad trip,” said another voice, one that Cisco couldn’t immediately place.

“He’s _ fine _, Damien,” Thawne retorted. He was still trying to hold Cisco still.

Cisco lolled his head in the direction of the room’s third occupant: a middle-aged man with closely-cropped white hair and piercing blue eyes. He was wearing an amused expression and radiated charisma, but Cisco recognized him from news reports and other research material he’d shared with Team Arrow.

“Damien Darhk?” Cisco croaked. “I heard you were dead.”

“_ Escape From New York _,” Darhk rattled off expertly. “Great movie.”

“Aww, you two are already getting along. Perfect,” Thawne said. He continued to hold onto Cisco, his hands joined together right over Cisco’s heart. “If this one-time deal turns into a permanent arrangement, we’ll all be seeing a lot more of each other in the future.” He looked down at Cisco. “Feeling better?”

Cisco wasn’t dizzy anymore, and he was pretty sure he knew which way was up. He was also self-aware enough to notice that Thawne had taken the time to put jeans, shoes, and socks on him before they left the apartment. The idea of Thawne dressing Cisco like a doll while he was unconscious was a little scary, so he tried not to dwell on it. “Yeah…yeah, I think I’m good.”

Thawne released him. Once he had his arms free, the first thing he did was take a swing at his captor. Thawne obviously hadn’t anticipated this, because Cisco’s fist actually connected with the man’s chin.

“Um, ouch?” Thawne said, sounding more surprised and confused than wounded. “What was that for?”

“What the hell was all of _ this _ for?!” Cisco snarled, scrambling to his feet. “I trusted you, and you drugged me!”

Thawne exhaled as he stood up, too. “If you’ll just let me explain—”

The last time Cisco had said that to him, Thawne had interrupted him in order to continue ranting angrily. Cisco only wished he had a metal door to slam in Thawne’s face. “You said you were going to save Dante!”

“I _ did _,” Thawne said. “I took care of that while you were unconscious.”

Cisco’s heart skipped a beat. “You…you did?

Thawne nodded. “It was simple. I just went to the time and scene of the accident and pulled him out of the car right before the impact. The other driver still died, of course, but as they say in the 21st century: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

Cisco swallowed. He honestly felt like it would have been just as easy for Thawne to save both Dante and the other driver as it would have been to save Dante alone. But his concern for the stranger was quickly drowned out by the idea that _ Holy Hannah, Dante could actually be alive _. Once again, his ears were ringing, and he felt nauseous.

“He left you here with me while he was gone,” Darhk volunteered. “I was told that, if anything happened to you, he’d rip my spine out, one vertebra at a time.” 

Thawne smiled, like he was expecting to be thanked…or kissed. Cisco wasn’t sure he wanted to do either, so he tore his gaze away from Thawne’s face and glanced around at their surroundings. His initial impression—that they were in some kind of storage area—seemed to be correct, as the room was dotted with shelves of weapons and miscellaneous tech. Overall, the place seemed to be bathed in a cold, blue light that Cisco found slightly unsettling, even if he wasn’t sure why. 

“Where are we?” he finally asked, finding his voice again.

“It’s called The Vanishing Point,” Thawne explained. He leaned back against the wall. “In this universe, there are certain places where time works…differently.”

“‘Differently?’ What do you mean?” Suddenly, his eyes shot open. “Oh, crap, is this gonna turn into one of those ‘In the six hours that you were in that mystical place, six months passed on Earth’ scenarios? Because that was definitely _ not _ part of our deal, Thawne!”

To Cisco’s surprise, Thawne (and Darhk) laughed. “No, Cisco. I’m going to take you back to the exact moment we left. It’ll be like you were never gone at all.”

“Then why are we here?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you. Because normal laws of time and space don’t apply in The Vanishing Point, it’s a safe haven from changes in the timeline.”

Slowly, comprehension flickered through Cisco’s mind. “So…because I was here while you were saving Dante…I’ll remember that he was dead?”

“Exactly.”

But just because he understood didn’t mean that he was happy. “…And you couldn’t have just explained that before we left? You _ had _ to roofie me?”

Thawne raised his eyebrows. “Would you have believed me about us needing to come to the Vanishing Point?” he asked. “Or would you have refused to go anywhere on the grounds that I was probably just trying to kidnap you?”

“Well, technically, you _ did _ kidnap me,” Cisco grumbled. “Drugging a person and taking them someplace against their will is, like, the definition of kidnapping.”

“He’s got you there, Eobard,” Darhk quipped.

Thawne rolled his eyes at him, then turned his attention back to Cisco. “We can argue semantics later. It’s time to go, Cisco.”

“And where, exactly, are we going now?” Cisco paused. “Or…should I say ‘when’?”

“Home. _ Your _ home,” Thawne said. “Although, someday, I’d like to take you to the future, so you can see _ my _ home.”

“Hard pass on that,” Cisco replied flatly, even though his inner nerd found the prospect incredibly exciting.

Thawne snorted, and his eyes twinkled in a _ you’re-just-playing-hard-to-get _ sort of way. “Whatever you say. I’m going to open a pathway so that we can time travel.” He threw Cisco one last glance. “Do us both a favor and hold onto me when I pick you up? You’re a small guy, but dead weight _ is _ dead weight.”

“You’re gonna _ pick me up _?” Cisco said, but the words hadn’t even fully left his mouth when Thawne zipped out of the room in a burst of red lightning and a blast of air.

“I hate it when he does that,” Darhk said, presumably to himself. He turned his attention to Cisco and looked him up and down. “So…you and Thawne used to date?”

Cisco laughed ruefully. “It’s…it’s _ really _ complicated.”

“Huh. Guess he likes ‘em young,” Darhk mused. “Although, since he’s from the future, _ you’re _ technically—”

That was all Cisco heard before he was suddenly swept off of his feet; Thawne had apparently finished opening the portal and come back to grab him. Cisco gasped involuntarily and, out of instinct, wrapped his arms around Thawne’s neck. When he peered out, he saw that they were careening towards a shimmering blue portal, and he instantly knew what it was. 

_ Once more unto the breach, _ Cisco thought to himself, and he took a deep breath before they entered the rip in the space-time continuum.

***

Paso Rojo was the neighborhood where Cisco had grown up; it was a small suburb on the west side of Central City with a majority Latino population. After the Flash’s rise to fame, there were a few vague talks about changing the area’s name to “Scarlet Step,” but that just turned into a kerfuffle about gentrification, and nothing quite came out of it. Cisco had left the neighborhood as soon as he could afford his own apartment, but his mother and father—and, until a few months ago, Dante—still lived in same house they’d been residing in since the 90s. 

When he and Thawne came out of the breach, Cisco realized that they were in Paso Rojo, right in front of the Ramon family home. He also noticed that Thawne’s technique for holding him bridal-style involved one hand being further up on Cisco’s thigh than seemingly necessary.

“Okay, dude, did you REALLY have to carry me like this?” Cisco asked shortly. He was still clinging to Thawne’s neck, but only because he was worried about being dropped on his ass.

Thawne smirked. “It was the safest way to do things. If you’d stumbled or fallen while inside the breach, you could have gotten lost in time. There’s also time wraiths, lightning storms, and various other hazards to watch out for.”

“So...you carried Damien Darhk like this, too?”

“Of course not,” Thawne snorted. “When I needed to take _ him _ to the Vanishing Point, I made him sit in a time sphere while I ran alongside it.”

“...Put me down, you perv,” Cisco said, fixing him with the most withering glare he could muster. He’d had a feeling that the whole ‘I’ll pick you up’ bit had just been an excuse to cop a feel, but he was still disappointed to receive confirmation of this fact.

With a slight chuckle, Thawne did release Cisco, setting him down on his feet gently.

“Why are we here?” Cisco asked, staring at the walkway to his childhood home. The exterior of the house appeared normal enough, though the whole front lawn was covered in fallen leaves, and there seemed to be a fresh oil stain in the driveway. The window into the living room was illuminated, suggesting that someone was inside the house, but the curtains were drawn so Cisco couldn’t see any details. 

Thawne squeezed Cisco’s shoulders with both hands. “For confirmation, obviously.” When Cisco continued to look confused, he added, “So you can see that I kept my word.” He leaned over so that his lips hovered near Cisco’s ear. “I’ve got some other business to attend to, but I’ll be back soon. Of course, you’ll probably be too busy spending time with your brother to miss me very much.”

Cisco was back to feeling nauseous. He’d like to blame that—and the ringing in his ears—on his jaunt through time, but he knew that it was actually apprehension. Could Dante really be here? And if he was, then what did it mean in the long-term? What did it mean for his entire family?

“It’s alright,” Thawne said gently, nudging Cisco on the back. “Go knock on the door.”

After swallowing, Cisco took a few steps forward on the concrete path leading up to the porch. But then his anxiety overcame him, and his legs seemed to freeze up. Unsure of himself, he glanced back at the street again. His instincts were telling him to run, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to run away from—or toward.

Thawne, however, was now leaning against the chain-link fence enclosing the house’s front yard. His eyes met Cisco’s, and he tossed him an encouraging smile. Then he raised his hands and shooed Cisco away, silently encouraging him to keep going.

Cisco swallowed again. He forced his head forward and trudged the remaining steps to the front porch. And, once he’d planted his feet on the welcome mat, he knocked on the door with his non-injured hand. 

He heard sounds of movement coming from inside the house. Then, the door opened, and…

_ Oh, my God. _

Dante stood there, looking at him with undisguised confusion. “Cisco?” he said, squinting at him in the dim light of the porch. “Hey, man, what are you doing here?”

Dante. It was Dante. Dante was there, and he…he wasn’t…

“I mean, it’s not like I’m not glad to see you,” Dante continued. “But you usually call before you head over.” He let out a soft chuckle. “For all you know, I could have a girl in here with me.”

Dante was alive. Dante was _ alive. _

“Uh…Mama and Papa aren’t home right now,” Dante continued—he seemed a little confused that his joke about being with a girl hadn’t gotten any kind of reaction from Cisco. “They’re visiting Tia Magdalena in Keystone. They won’t be back until tomorrow night. But if you need something, maybe I can—?”

That was as far as he got before Cisco threw his arms around him in a bone-breaking hug. _ Dante. Dante. Dante. _ He closed his eyes and, with his chin on Dante’s shoulder, inhaled his brother’s scent. Dante wore Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier, and for the last few months, so much as catching a whiff of that stuff on _ anyone _ he came in contact with had made Cisco feel like he was suffocating. 

Dante, of course, was perplexed by this sudden outpouring emotion. Awkwardly, he hugged Cisco back. “Whoa. Cisco…Cisco, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Cisco finally managed to say, and he laughed to keep himself from crying. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I dunno,” Dante said, still acting bewildered. He patted Cisco’s back and then pulled away from him. “You just…you’re acting weird. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I…I missed you,” Cisco said. “I really missed you, man.”

Dante chuckled uncomfortably. “You saw me less than a week ago at Sunday dinner.”

Cisco wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh some more or just scream. “Really? Feels like a lot longer.” He hugged Dante again; he couldn’t help it. “I love you. I know I don’t say that, like, ever…but…you know I love you, right?”

Dante was quiet for a second. Then, he sighed. “Ho boy. What did you take?”

“Huh?”

“C’mon, Cisco—we’re letting the heat out.” He put his hand on Cisco’s back and gently led him into the house. Once they’d crossed the threshold, he shut the door. “What’d you take? God, you are _ so _ lucky Mama and Papa aren’t home right now. And you’d better not have driven over here while you were high; you _ know _ how I feel about that.”

It took Cisco a second to process what he was saying. Then, he groaned in irritation. Dante had been back for five minutes and he was already getting under Cisco’s skin. Things really _ were _ back to normal. “Dude, I’m not on drugs right now! I’m totally sober!”

“Then why are you acting so weird?” Dante asked, frowning. “You come here outta the blue, talking about how much you miss me and love me, and…” His voice trailed off. “Oh…wait…did you get dumped? Is _ that _ what this is about?”

“No.”

“But this _ is _ about a girl? Or a guy?” Dante asked, staring into Cisco’s eyes. He’d known for years that Cisco was bisexual, but he acknowledged it so rarely that Cisco was somewhat surprised to hear those three words.

“I…” Cisco said, then he stopped. Yes, technically, this whole mess had started when Cisco’s ex-lover showed up in his apartment. But how could he even _ begin _ to explain everything to Dante?

Finally, Dante sighed again. “Alright. Well, I don’t have work tomorrow, so let’s break out a bottle of whiskey, and you can tell me all about it.” He turned to head towards the kitchen. They were both adults now, so their days of hiding bottles of booze under the loose floorboard in their bedroom were over.

“Wait!” Cisco said, finding his voice.

“Yeah?” Dante said.

“Can we talk about…other stuff?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Just…anything. I don’t want to talk about my ex. I’d rather talk about the good old days. When we were kids.”

“‘The good old days?’” Dante scoffed. “Sure, if that’s what you want. But whatever’s going on, you know you’ve gotta deal with it eventually, right?”

Cisco exhaled. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

He wouldn’t, though, that night. That night, he and Dante would just sit on the couch and reminisce. It was a little awkward at first, since they’d mostly drifted apart by the time they were both in high school. But there _ were _ good memories, too, buried beneath all of the crap: watching old reruns of Muppet Babies on Nickelodeon (Cisco could still sing the theme song from memory), teaming up to beat their cousins at Mario Party on the Nintendo 64 (“Remember when I threatened to knock Armando's teeth out because he wouldn’t let you be Yoshi?” Dante said), and walking down to the neighborhood park on summer afternoons when their mother got sick of listening to them bicker and kicked them to the curb. And, after a few drinks, both of them loosened up and saw the humor in more recent scenarios: the night Dante had forgotten a pan of enchiladas in the oven and nearly set the house on fire, the day Cisco had stormed off in a huff after an argument with their parents but left his keys on the table and had to—rather sheepishly—come back for them, and the evening that their _ bisabuela _ heard them cursing at each other and washed both of their mouths out with soap (despite the fact that they were in their 20s at the time). They even made a toast to Melinda Torres, whose recent wedding neither of them had been invited to attend. 

Around 3 a.m., both Ramon brothers’ eyelids began to droop, and the conversation was filled with more easy silences than actual talking. That was when Dante declared that they were both “done,” stood up, and gathered up their glasses and the now-empty whiskey bottle. “You wanna crash here tonight? Or are you gonna call a cab and go back to your place?”

“Is it cool if I stay here?” Cisco asked, and his tongue felt too big for his mouth.

“Yeah, sure it is—that’s why I offered, dummy.” Dante passed back into the living room. “I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket from the linen closet. Try not to puke all over the couch, okay?”

Cisco was going to say something snappy in response, but instead, he yawned. _ Uh-huh, sleep good _, he thought dully. He’d already kicked off his shoes, and since it was just him and Dante in the house, he peeled off his jeans and socks and draped them over the back of the couch. His brain wasn’t really in the right state to make a plan for after the sun rose, but he figured that the team would probably prefer he stop at his place to shower and change before coming into work, even if doing so meant getting to S.T.A.R. Labs much later than usual.

Then again, he’d told Barry earlier that he wasn’t even sure if he’d come in at all. Considering that he’d only said that because they’d been arguing about Dante, though, would Barry remember the conversation? Still, maybe he should text Caitlin, just so she wouldn’t worry…

“Hey, Earth to Cisco,” Dante said, interrupting his ruminations. He was trying to hand Cisco a blanket and a pillow.

“Oh, sorry,” Cisco said, accepting the linens. They smelled like cheap laundry soap—his mother never could seem to pass up a deal on cleaning supplies.

“You okay? You gonna be sick?”

“Nah, I’m fine. I was just…thinking.”

“I thought that we spent the last few hours drinking and talking so you _ wouldn’t _ have to think.” He paused, then said, “By-the-way, Cisco, how did you get over here? I didn’t see a car or anything when you were standing on the front porch.”

It suddenly struck Cisco that he hadn’t glanced back at all since Dante opened the door. Thawne must have run off when he figured that Cisco would be okay. “Uh…you know that ex that I didn’t want to talk about?”

“Yeah. What about them?”

“He gave me a ride.”

Dante scoffed. “Yikes, _ hermanito _. You got it bad, huh?”

Cisco didn’t answer. He was _ just _ sober enough to realize that he was too drunk to think about Thawne right now.

“Whatever,” Dante said, shrugging. “Goodnight.” And he turned to walk away.

“Hey, Dante?” Cisco said, suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“I’m…I’m glad you’re not dead,” Cisco said. And then he laughed, because Dante had no way of knowing what, exactly, he was talking about.

It seemed to take Dante a second to process what his brother had just said to him. When it finally clicked, he let out a good-natured snort. “Yeah, okay. I’m glad you’re not dead, either. Though, with how much we drank, I’m pretty sure we’re both gonna wish we were dead in the morning.”

“Did you know speedsters can’t get drunk?” Cisco said, stretching out on the couch.

“They can’t? That’s weird. And random.” He snorted again. “I still can’t believe that you’re friends with The Flash, Cisco. You _ did _ tell him I said thanks, right?”

“Huh?”

“You know, for saving me a few months ago. In that car accident.” He was standing at the foot of the staircase, his arms spread out to grip both railings in his fingers. “I know it was him. He didn’t stick around, but how _ else _ could I have landed on my feet in the grass without a scratch on me when both cars were totaled? And the other driver died, so I probably could have been pretty badly hurt, too.”

Cisco swallowed. “Dante…” 

Dante laughed ruefully. “Eh, good point. No use dwelling on it. That’s just what heroes do, right? See you in the morning, Cisco.” He headed up the stairs, disappearing from sight.

Cisco, for his part, lay back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. So Dante thought that it was Barry who saved his life. The irony was so ridiculous that Cisco wasn’t even sure it was funny. He _ could _ tell Dante the truth, but he didn’t see a point. Instead, it would just be his and Thawne’s secret.

** _“That’s just what heroes do, right?”_ **

He had to wonder: if heroes protected the people they loved and rescued the innocent, what, exactly, did that make Barry? What did it make Thawne?

***

The next morning, at S.T.A.R. Labs, everything was normal.

Well, Cisco was extremely hungover—with how much alcohol he and Dante had consumed the night before, _ that _ was pretty much inevitable.

But Wally was still a speedster. The whole team was still puzzling over Dr. Alchemy’s Identity. And Caitlin was still wearing those meta-dampening cuffs on her wrists like sweatbands. H.R. was wastefully cheerful as usual, and Iris, Joe, and Barry seemed to be in relatively good spirits, too. As far as Cisco could tell, everything that had happened in the last few days, from encountering the husk metas to Barry being blackmailed by Julian into quitting the CCPD, had still occurred.

Except now…Dante was alive. And he and Barry were friends again.

“You gonna take those sunglasses off anytime soon?” Barry chirped while Cisco monitored his and Wally’s vitals on the speed lab computer monitor. The two speedsters had been doing laps, and Barry came out of the loop to come check on their results.

“Not unless you’re willing to turn off all of the effing lights in this room,” Cisco grumbled back, massaging his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Is it _ always _ this bright in here?”

Wally came screeching to a stop right beside Barry. “Ooh, what if we did turn the lights off and then just used our lightning to see?! Cisco could even build us an obstacle course that we can navigate in the dark!”

“Cisco’s not building _ anything _ today,” Cisco said, wincing. “I feel like my head’s full of gravel.”

“It’s not _ my _ fault you came here hungover!” Wally said indignantly. “You’re supposed to be our tech guy!”

Cisco glared at him. “Buddy, I was assembling circuits when you were still drinking out of sippy cups and occasionally crapping your pants in nursery school. Do _ not _ doubt my tech prowess, okay?”

Wally seemed slightly taken aback, but Barry laughed nervously, trying to defuse the tension. “We don’t need a brand-new obstacle course right now. Hey, why don’t Wally and I just try that training program you created for the pipeline? That one that Jesse and I ran last time she and Harry were on Earth-1?”

Cisco exhaled. “Sure, I guess we can do that. Why don’t you guys take a breather, first, and then I’ll come monitor it for you?”

“Yeah, okay,” Wally said, still looking a bit sour. He zipped out of the lab in a blast of yellow.

Grimacing, Barry turned to Cisco. “He’s…excited about being a speedster, and he wants to try everything. Don’t take his attitude personally.”

“I’ll try not to,” Cisco grumbled. After Dante’s death, everyone on the team had treated him with kid gloves. Wally’s current behavior seemed downright bratty by comparison. 

“Oh, and we need more speedster energy bars, when you’ve got time to make them,” Barry said, walking off towards the lab exit.

“I thought we had enough of those in reserve to last us a while?” Cisco said. He pushed up his sunglasses to rub his eyes. “Also, weren’t you going to start helping me make those?”

Barry paused in the doorway. He looked confused. “Uh…no…we’re almost out. And…I _ guess _ I can start helping you make them? Do you want me to?”

Cisco was about to remind him of their conversation the previous day (and admonish Barry for trying to weasel out a responsibility he’d offered to take on), but then he caught himself. Apparently, that conversation hadn’t happened—not anymore.

“I mean, if it’s a burden for you to make twice as many now—”

“Nah, it’s fine. I can keep making them while you focus on training Wally,” Cisco said. He shook his head. “Please give my foggy brain a break. You know how that is, right?”

Barry scoffed. “I don’t, actually.” Then he turned and left the lab, just as Caitlin was walking in. She was holding a couple ibuprofen tablets and a 20-oz. bottle of Gatorade (fruit punch flavor). Wordlessly, she handed the lot to Cisco.

“Caitlin, will you marry me?” he asked, accepting the gifts gratefully. “Granted, my parents will probably flip out when I tell them that you’re not catholic, but as long as we subject our kids to infant baptism, they’ll probably come to accept you.”

Caitlin snorted with laughter. “Sure. Oh, but when you’re buying my engagement ring, I want a lab-grown white sapphire. No conflict diamonds, alright?” She patted his shoulder, then went to peek at one of the computer monitors. “It’s…actually pretty unlike you to come here hungover. Is something wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I just…I spent time with Dante last night. We got to drinking and reminiscing.”

“Oh? And how is he?” Caitlin asked, fussing with the computer.

“Uh…same as usual, I guess? Nothing really new. I mean, we mostly talked about when we were kids. All of the good times, you know?” He exhaled. “I don’t think that Dante and I will ever be, like, BFFs, but I’m glad that we’re rebuilding our relationship. When I think of all the time we spent estranged, I just…well, you never know when you might lose someone you care about. Right?”

Caitlin stopped, her fingers poised over the keyboard. Her expression had darkened slightly. “Cisco,” she started, sounding a bit annoyed, “I know what you’re doing…”

Cisco jolted. _ Did _ she know what he’d done? That seemed impossible, but—

“…and I’m _ not _ calling my mom,” she finished in a firm voice. “Going to her in the first place was a mistake. I’ll figure this Killer Frost thing out on my own.” She grunted. “Just because you patched things up with your brother doesn’t mean I can patch things up with my mother.”

“Oh,” Cisco said. “Of course. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to…” He swallowed. “I thought your last visit went okay? You told me that you were maybe on your way to repairing things.”

Caitlin raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, you really _ do _ have brain fog right now. I remember telling you what a disaster it was and how I’d be happy if I never saw her face or heard her voice ever again.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah,” Cisco said, pretending he had a clue what she was talking about. “Sorry.” In an attempt to cheer her up, he said, “Ya know, Snart and Rory are with the Legends right now. I’ll bet if we asked them to, they could kidnap you and your mom. That hostage situation really opened doors for me and Dante.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes. “No thanks.” She gestured to the ibuprofen tablets. “Go ahead and take those. I’ll see you in the Cortex in a bit?”

“Yeah.” Just to appease her, he immediately opened the Gatorade and used a mouthful of it to wash down the pills she’d given him. “Thanks,” he said, smiling.

Despite his superficial cheerfulness, though, his conversation with Caitlin was weighing on him. So, now, not only were the Labs running low on speedster bars and Wally was a little punk…in the Dante’s-Not-Dead timeline (he’d come up with a better name for it later), Caitlin and her mother were still totally estranged. The differences were subtle, but they existed. What else had changed?

He was starting to feel a bit anxious about the whole thing, so instead of heading straight to the Cortex, he walked into the kitchen. Sure enough, Barry was perched in a chair, munching on an energy bar and watching a video on his phone.

Cisco inhaled, then said, “Hey, Barry?”

Barry looked at him. “Yeah?” he said, tapping his phone to stop the video. 

“I have a question. It’s about…Flashpoint.”

Barry paused. “Uh, yeah? What do you want to know?”

“Well…you said that stuff’s different between the Pre- and Post-Flashpoint timelines. And we’re pretty sure that creating Flashpoint—and trying to put everything back together again afterwards—is what made…certain things…change. Right?”

“Right.”

Cisco flexed his fingers. His right hand still hurt, though the wound had looked better under the bandage that morning. “So, how do we know what changed _ because _ of Flashpoint? How do you know that something wasn’t already going to happen, regardless?”

Barry winced slightly. “I don’t know. I guess that’s the really dangerous part of time travel. You might cause a butterfly effect.” He exhaled. “I thought that the changes were limited to stuff that happened between when Thawne killed my mom and when I went back to stop him from doing it. But…now, with all this Dr. Alchemy stuff going on…” He shook his head. “I have no idea what I’ve done.”

Cisco felt a little nauseous, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t his hangover causing it. Barry didn’t know what he’d done. Was there any way that Cisco could know what _ he’d _ done?

“Why do you—?” Barry started, but he was cut off when the Meta app alarm started trilling. Their conversation completely forgotten, Barry grabbed Cisco’s arm and _ whooshed _them back to the Cortex.

The emergency turned out to be a pyrokinetic meta attacking some of the dorms at CCU. Despite Wally’s protests, Barry went to take care of the problem by himself while Cisco quarterbacked from the Cortex. Eventually, it came to light that the perp—one Trina Blaise, age 21—had received her powers from the particle accelerator explosion, but she’d never seen fit to use them for criminal purposes until her sorority kicked her out for bad behavior. At that point, she’d elected to burn down the Alpha Delta Omicron house, never mind the fact that there were still several Alphas _ inside _ the house.

It was a routine mission; The Flash swooped in and saved the day. No one died, though a few girls wound up in Central City Hospital with burns and smoke inhalation injuries. And that should have been the end of it.

But it wasn’t.

After everyone had gone home for the night, Cisco stayed behind, poring over all of the resources at his disposal to try and discover a connection between Trina Blaise, Dante Ramon, and John Yule—the drunk driver who’d originally killed Dante (but now only succeeded in getting himself killed).

_ Maybe John Yule was a friend of Trina’s, and the knowledge that he’d caused an accident that killed both himself and an innocent person was supposed to motivate Trina to change her ways and never get kicked out of her sorority in the first place? _

_ Maybe Dante dated the head of Alpha Delta Omicron and then dumped her, and the girl’s post-breakup blues caused her to refuse to give Trina a second chance when she begged for one? _

_ Maybe Trina witnessed the accident, saw “The Flash” save Dante but not John, and decided that she should start using her powers as she saw fit, too? _

Infinite scenarios ran through his mind, but no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find anything to link the three of them together. It would seem that Trina’s rampage really had nothing to do with Dante being alive; it was going to occur regardless of what Cisco and Thawne had done.

Cisco leaned back in his chair, his stomach in knots once more. Barry had warned him that something horrible could happen as a result of changing the past. Was that better or worse than _ nothing _ changing, and Cisco having to accept that months of pain and grief had been for absolutely nothing?


	3. Chapter 3

Thawne left Cisco alone for nearly a full week. When he finally showed up at Cisco’s apartment again, Cisco was in bed, and he didn’t even bother getting out from under his blanket.

“I know that this is going to sound rich coming from me,” Thawne said as he stood in the doorway to the bedroom, “but you _ really _ need to get your sleep schedule back on track.”

“You’re right. That _ is _ hypocritical garbage,” Cisco grumbled. He rolled over onto his other side. “And maybe I’d sleep better if I didn’t have a supervillain showing up at my apartment uninvited every five goddamn minutes. Don’t you have anything better to do than harass me?”

Thawne chuckled. “What could be more important than visiting you? Besides, me coming over unannounced doesn’t change the fact that you’re in bed at 7 p.m. again. Please tell me that this wasn’t another one of your all-afternoon naps.”

“No, I turned in early because I didn’t get _ any _ sleep last night.”

“That’s not healthy, Cisco.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m not taking health tips from a guy who, by all accounts, shouldn’t even exist. My sleep cycle’s screwed up, but at least I’m not a time remnant.”

To Cisco’s surprise, Thawne laughed at that—really laughed, with his head thrown back and his shoulders heaving. Once he’d gotten ahold of himself, he toed off his shoes, laid his jacket on Cisco’s bureau, and crossed the room to Cisco’s bed. The next thing Cisco knew, Thawne was in bed _ with _ him, lying on top of the blanket but snuggled up so that they were spooning.

They reclined in silence for a few seconds. Finally, Cisco said, “That’s weird—I don’t remember giving you permission to get in bed with me.”

Thawne chuckled again; Cisco felt the rumble in the man’s chest as it pressed against his back. “And yet, you’re not screaming at me to go away. We’ve made _ substantial _ progress since my first visit.”

“It’s just because I’m too tired to fight with you right now. Like I said: I didn’t get any sleep last night. Too much on my mind.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Thawne swept some of Cisco’s hair out of his face. “Now, now…Daddy can’t help you if he doesn’t know what’s wrong.”

Cisco felt his cheeks flush. He pressed his thighs together involuntarily, wishing he’d put on pajama pants instead of just trying to sleep in his boxers and an old t-shirt.

Thawne noticed the motion, even though there was a blanket hiding Cisco’s legs from view. “Oh. I see you’re still into _ that _,” he mused. He fussed with Cisco’s hair some more. “Some things never change.”

“Can you dial back the pervy innuendo?” Cisco grumbled. “You’re at a six, and I need you to be at a two. Or lower.”

“Just tell me what’s bothering you. I gave you Dante back so you could be happy. But it seems like you’re still depressed. What happened?”

Cisco sighed. “_ Nothing _ happened. At least, I don’t think it did. But that’s the problem.”

“I don’t understand.” 

Cisco rolled over so that they were face-to-face. “Barry said…he kept saying that he couldn’t save Dante because there could be fallout. That we didn’t know how it might change the present if he altered the past, so he couldn’t do it. That it was dangerous. And so, ever since you went back in time…I’ve been on the lookout for changes. But except for some tiny little details…I can’t find anything.”

Thawne nodded in comprehension, silently willing Cisco to keep talking.

“I’ve checked news outlets. I’ve been reading blogs. I even scoured the dark web. And as far as I can tell…_ nothing _ happened. Dante’s alive, and nothing bad happened as a result.” He swallowed. “He’s alive, and my family’s back to normal, and that’s…that’s the only real difference. Everything else is the same. And, at this point, short of Dante suddenly going full-on Rupture…I don’t know if I could reasonably blame anything bad that happens in the future on him _ not _ dying.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No!” Cisco said, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I mean, yes, it is, but…but that means it was a waste. All of it…I didn’t need to…we could have…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, because that meant facing the truth. And he wasn’t sure he could do that.

But Thawne figured it out, and _ he _ wasn’t afraid to say it: “So, you suffered needlessly. Barry could have saved you months of agony, but he chose not to. He thought that the arbitrary rules about time travel that _ he _ made for himself were more important than your happiness.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, my Cisco.”

Cisco’s head was throbbing. He sat up in bed and pressed the heels of his hands to his temples in an attempt to keep himself from screaming…or to prevent his brain from liquefying and oozing out of his ears. “I _ know _ that we had no way of knowing what would happen, and Barry was just trying to minimize the risk. But…it’s not fair. And I can’t even be mad at him, because…because, technically he didn’t _ do _ anything. We erased it, so…so…what do _ I _ do?” He felt a heat in his eyes and realized that he was about to cry. He looked at Thawne. “What should I do?”

Thawne sat up, too, and put his hands on Cisco’s, pulling them from his head. “I don’t know about ‘should.’ But…if you want my opinion…I think that you need to stop giving Barry Allen the benefit of the doubt.” He squeezed Cisco’s hands. “He has shown you—time and time again—that he doesn’t care about you nearly as much as you care about him.”

“Stop. Please,” Cisco pleaded. “I know you hate Barry. I know that hating Barry is your whole shtick…And yeah, I’ll admit that he’s not perfect. But…he’s my best friend. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Thawne’s expression darkened, and Cisco thought he saw a splash of electric red in his sclera. When he spoke, though, it was in a controlled tone. “Cisco…how much do you know about the Flashpoint timeline? Exactly how much did Barry tell you?”

“Almost nothing. I know he lived in it for three months, and everything was way different, but that’s it. He said he’d tell us if we wanted to know, but I didn’t see a point.”

“Is that so?” Thawne’s eyes narrowed. “Well, then, I think I should let you in on a little secret. I was going to keep it to myself, because I thought you’d already suffered enough. But now, I think you need to know the truth about your _ best friend _ Barry.” He paused. “Would you like to hear it?”

“I…I guess?” Cisco said, though he wasn’t confident at all in his answer. 

“Barry and I were in Flashpoint for three months,” Thawne said. “For three months, he lived a happy, normal life while keeping me locked in a cage like an animal. And, you know what, maybe that’s what _ I _ deserved. Maybe it’s payback for the time we kept those meta criminals locked up in the pipeline.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” He looked at Cisco. “But in those three months, do you know how many times he checked up on you and Caitlin to make sure you two were alright? That his actions hadn’t left either of his two closest friends and confidents destitute, or miserable, or worse?”

Cisco stayed silent, dreading the answer.

“_ Zero. _ He checked on you two _ zero _ times,” Thawne spat. “Oh, he practically stalked Iris West for a while, trying to work up the courage to ask her out. But Barry had _ no idea _ if you and Caitlin were even _ alive _ . It wasn’t until he needed your help that he actually elected to seek you both out.” He wet his lips. “In fact…I’m pretty sure that finding _ you _ was actually Iris’s idea, not his.”

Cisco felt like he’d been slapped. He inhaled shakily. “You…you can’t expect me to believe that. Barry…I know he can be selfish, but he wouldn’t…he wouldn’t do _ that _. He wouldn’t just ditch Caitlin and me.”

“While we were in Flashpoint, I told him that the life he was living was a lie. And he told me—his _ exact words _ were, ‘I’m whole, here.’ Whole. Without Caitlin. Without you.” He leaned forward so that their foreheads were touching. “If you don’t believe me, go confront Barry about it. We both know he can’t lie for shit. He’ll only confirm what I just told you.”

And, with that permission, Cisco _ knew _ that Thawne was telling the truth. Because why the hell would he _ dare _ Cisco to verify something that could so easily be disproven? 

Cisco’s throat was closing up. Or maybe his lungs were collapsing. Either way, he was suffocating. _ Whole. Whole. Whole. _ Did he and Caitlin—did _ he _ actually mean so little to Barry that he could simply be discarded? Sure, _ eventually _, Barry had decided he wanted his old life and his old friends back. But why had it taken him three months to miss them? 

“Cisco…Cisco, breathe.”

Why wasn’t he good enough? Why wasn’t he_ ever _ good enough for _ anyone _?

“Cisco…take a breath.” Thawne was holding him, cuddling him to his chest like a toddler. “It’s alright.” He planted a kiss on Cisco’s forehead. “I’m here.”

The feeling of Thawne’s lips on his skin seemed to snap him out of his stupor. He gazed up at Thawne’s face, and…fear? Was Thawne afraid? Afraid _ for _ him?

“There we go,” Thawne said, exhaling. “Please forgive me. I shouldn’t have told you that. All it did was hurt you. I thought you needed to know, but—”

Cisco kissed him, throwing one arm over Thawne’s shoulder so that he could reach the man’s mouth. It was a frantic, desperate movement, like a drowning person clinging to twigs.

** _“Because I love you.”_ **

** _“Hello again, beautiful.”_ **

** _“My Cisco.”_ **

** _“My Cisco.”_ **

** _“My Cisco.”_ **

He wanted for someone to want him. And, right now, there seemed to only be one person in this sector of the multiverse who did.

Thawne leaned into it, holding Cisco close for a few more moments. Then, he pitched forward so that he could deposit Cisco onto his back. As Cisco stared upward, Thawne crouched over him, his arms on either side of Cisco’s head and one knee slotted between Cisco’s legs. His eyes were ravenous. He dipped down to kiss Cisco’s neck, adding just enough teeth that Cisco shivered. 

_ What the hell are you doing? _ Cisco asked himself. He was falling into old habits; that was what. Back in the day, he’d been so happy that “Harrison Wells” cared about him, that Harrison Wells was attracted to him, that he’d gone along with nearly anything the man had sought to do with (do to?) him. Even if it had been degrading, even if it had hurt. He’d happily handed Thawne a leash and hung on to his every word, because if he just followed directions and went with the flow, he wouldn’t be a _ disappointment _ for once in his miserable life.

He’d spent the last 18 months coming to grips with the fact that it was all a lie. That Thawne had just been using him because he needed someone to build tech for Team Flash and somewhere to stick his dick when he was bored. After the Reverse-Flash faded from existence, it had never occurred to Cisco that Thawne might have actually cared—that Thawne might have actually _ loved _ him after all.

He was starting to believe it, though. And, bizarrely, he began to worry that _ he _ was now taking advantage of Thawne.

“Hold on,” Cisco managed to say, putting his hands on Thawne’s chest in a feeble show of resistance. “I still…I still don’t know how I feel about you. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

“Don’t worry about that. _ This _ doesn’t have to mean anything,” Thawne said. “It can just be because it feels good. Let me do that for you, at least.” He used his thumb to stroke Cisco’s lower lip. “You deserve to feel good.”

_ Did _ he deserve to feel good?

“I…” Cisco started.

“Shhhh,” Thawne said. “It’s okay. Just trust me.”

He _ did _ deserve to feel good.

Cisco put his arms up, and almost reverently, Thawne slipped Cisco’s t-shirt up over his head. Then, he went about kissing the newly exposed skin, eventually working his way down to the waistband of Cisco’s boxers. Cisco put a hand on Thawne’s head, and he couldn’t help but be surprised at how different Thawne’s hair seemed from Harrison’s—unquestionably finer and softer.

Thawne noticed. He glanced up at Cisco. “It’s still me, darling. I might look and feel a little different than you remember, but…I know you. I know what you like. I know what you need.”

** _“Some things never change.”_ **

Cisco wasn’t sure _ he_ knew what he needed anymore.

“Are you still pretty down here?” Thawne asked. He mouthed at Cisco through the fabric of his underwear, and Cisco felt heat coil up in his belly. “I’ll bet you still taste sweet. Like candy.”

Cisco whimpered. “Please…”

“Please, what? Do you want for Daddy to—?” 

Thawne’s watch beeped.

His reaction was instantaneous; he pulled away from Cisco so hard that he might have wrenched his back and yelled “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” in the direction of his wrist.

Cisco jolted. All romance and intrigue had left the room in two seconds flat, and he was left feeling just a little punch-drunk. “Wuh…what’s wrong?”

Thawne exhaled through gritted teeth, like he was in physical pain. “I…I have to go.”

“Right now?” Cisco said, incredulous.

“Trust me, leaving is the absolute _ last _ thing I want to do right now. But I don’t have a choice.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t have time to explain—”

“Then just give me the short version!” Cisco snapped, grabbing Thawne’s arm. “If you want me to trust you, then you need to trust _ me _!”

Something akin to fear passed over Thawne’s face. He glanced at the door like he wasn’t sure if he should stay put or make a break for it. Finally, he exhaled and looked back at Cisco. “There’s something chasing me. Ever since I came to the present and started working to preserve my existence, the Speed Force has been trying to hunt me down.”

“Are you talking about a time wraith?” Cisco asked. “Because I know about those—we’ve dealt with them before, remember?”

Thawne shook his head, his expression turning more frantic. “No, no, it’s not a time wraith. It’s something worse. It’s almost like…” he looked at Cisco. “Well, _ you’d _ probably call it a zombie speedster.”

“A _ zombie _ speedster?” Cisco’s eyes shot open. “Whoa, holy crap…does it wear a black suit like yours and Barry’s and have a face only a mother could love?”

Thawne seemed startled—it was a rare expression on him. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Uh…okay, real quick: that’s Zoom, from Earth-2. Well, it _ was _ Zoom, before Barry led the time wraiths to him.” He winced. “I guess that bad and naughty speedsters get put in the Speed Force to atone for their crimes.” When Thawne continued to look perplexed, Cisco grunted. “It’s a meme, okay?”

“Whatever you say.” His watch beeped a second time. “If that thing catches me, it’ll kill me.”

“Yeah, I guess you _ better _ run, because I have no idea how you’d stop something like that. I mean, I’m assuming you already tried freezing it, and that didn’t work, so—”

“Wait, _ what _?”

“Freezing it. Like, with a cold gun. If someone told me I had to kill a zombie speedster, that would be the first thing I tried. But that didn’t work, did it?”

Thawne stared at him, an odd expression on his face. It was funny until Cisco realized exactly what was going on.

His jaw dropped. “You…_ you haven’t tried freezing it _ ?! You seriously didn’t think to do that?! Oh, my God.” He flopped down on his bed. “You almost separated my head from my body when you found out that I built the original cold gun _ because _ it could be used to hurt speedsters. Did you somehow forget about all of that?!” 

Thawne cackled, sounding a bit hysterical. “Nothing quite like a fresh pair of eyes to see a solution to a problem.”

“I guess.” Cisco sat up again. “But…wait…we don’t have a cold gun anymore—we destroyed the original back in 2015. Snart has the second one I made, but he’s with the Legends right now.”

For some reason, Thawne grimaced a little when Cisco said Snart’s name. But that expression quickly faded when his watch beeped a third time. “That’s not a problem. I’m leaving, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Where—?”

There was a flash of red light, and Thawne was suddenly kneeling in front of him, pressing his lips to Cisco’s mouth in a passionate kiss, one hand tangled in Cisco’s hair. Cisco’s words died in his throat, and for a brief moment, he lost himself in the feeling. And then Thawne was gone; Cisco felt a blast of air hit his face and some of the nerd paraphernalia in his bedroom tumbled about.

Cisco blinked his eyes a few times, feeling jittery to the point agitation. Now that he was alone, now that he wasn’t thinking with his dong, he wondered if he’d been on the brink of making a horrible, _ horrible _ mistake. The kind he couldn’t come back from.

** _“This doesn’t have to mean anything. It can just be because it feels good.”_ **

Or maybe he’d already crossed the point of no return? He was half-hard in his boxers, his skin flushed hot in certain places. He knew he should hate Thawne, but after everything that had happened in the last few weeks, he wasn’t sure he did anymore.

Once more, Cisco flopped down on his bed. As he blew air out of his mouth to get his hair away from his face, he thought out loud, “I can’t believe I just got cock-blocked by a zombie speedster…”

***

The next morning was gray and rainy, which would have been bad enough on its own, but Cisco also managed to sleep through his alarm and get stuck in construction traffic on the drive to S.T.A.R. Labs.

“I’m gonna have to master intra-dimension breaching,” Cisco announced as he walked into the Cortex, holding his coffee in one hand and flicking water out of hair with the other. “It’ll be awesome to just drop in here 10 minutes after I wake up instead of having to grapple with everyone else in the city during rush-hour. By-the-way, 4th street is torn up to hell, so I’d recommend avoiding it if you…” As he turned around and caught a glimpse of the scene before him, his voice trailed off.

Barry, Caitlin, Wally, H.R., Harry, and Jesse were all standing on the other side of the room. Their expressions were a mixture of discomfort and fear. 

For a moment, Cisco was silent. Then, he forced himself to laugh. “Wow. I come into work hungover _ one time _ and you guys decide to hold an intervention?”

“That’s…that’s not what this is about,” Barry said. He swallowed. “Um, H.R.?”

H.R. seemed clueless at first, but suddenly, his eyes flickered in recognition. “Oh! Uh…hey, Wally, Jesse? Whaddya say we run to Jitters for coffee and snacks? Uncle H.R.’s buying. He’s also driving, so maybe ‘run’ isn’t quite the right word, you little jackrabbits.”

“But—” Jesse started.

“Jesse, _ go _,” Harry said, and his tone was a warning.

Jesse flinched at her father’s coldness. “Okay. Yeah, coffee and snacks sound good.” The three of them walked out of the Cortex. H.R. was putting on a happy façade, but Jesse and Wally both threw Cisco apologetic glances as they passed by. Jesse seemed especially distraught.

Cisco watched them leave and then turned back to the rest of the team. Again, he forced himself to laugh. “Alright, so, is this the part where you all say that you’re here because you love me?”

“Cisco…we’re actually here because we’re…confused,” Caitlin said. She was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, and as she spoke, she fiddled with hem of her blouse. “And, _ of course _, we love you. But…there’s something serious that we need to discuss.”

_ They don’t know _ , Cisco told himself. _ There’s no way that they know _. “…Okay. Uh, what do you need me to clarify for you?” He glanced at Harry. “By-the-way, why are you and Jesse here? I thought you had stuff to do on your Earth.”

“We came to visit Wally,” Harry said crisply. “We got your message about him becoming a speedster, and Jesse was so excited that she wanted to surprise him.”

“Ah. Okay. Well, that clears up _ my _ confusion…” Cisco murmured. 

“Cisco…what happened to Dante?” Barry asked.

The question, which seemed to come out of nowhere, was like a punch in the stomach. _ THEY DON’T KNOW THEY DON’T KNOW THEY DON’T KNOW. _“What do you mean?” Cisco asked, setting his stuff down. He crossed to the front of the computer station and leaned against it, trying his best to seem casual. “He’s…fine. I was texting with him last night.” Suddenly, a different kind of fear trickled through him. “Why? Did something happen? Did I miss a meta attack, or something?”

“No, but…” his voice trailed off.

“You can’t spit it out, Allen? Fine, then _ I _ will,” Harry said. He looked in Cisco’s direction. “Can you please explain to us why, the last time Jesse and I were on this Earth, your brother was dead, but now, he’s alive?”

_ Shit. SHIT _ . Just like being at The Vanishing Point had protected Cisco’s memories of Dante dying, being on Earth-2 when the timeline changed must have protected Harry and Jesse’s memories of their last visit to Earth-1. During that jaunt, he _ had _ told both Wellses about Dante. Jesse’s mother had died in a car accident, too, and it was something that they’d all three commiserated over.

The temperature in the room suddenly shot up about 200 degrees. He’d been careful, but he’d _ still _ managed to make a critical error. _ How fucking stupid can you get? _

“Look, when Jesse asked how you were coping with Dante’s death, the first thing I told her was, ‘That’s not funny,’” Caitlin said. “Because Barry, Wally, and I really thought that it was some kind of sick joke. But then Jesse got upset, and we all started talking…”

Once again, they were all staring at him. After a moment of staring back mutely, Cisco realized that they were expecting for him to speak. Ignoring every instinct telling him to run, he rooted his feet to the ground and bit his lip. “Okay, if you’ll just hear me out…I’ll explain…I can explain everything. Okay?”

“Please do,” Caitlin said, sounding hopeful. Like she thought that maybe, just maybe, this whole thing was a huge misunderstanding that they’d laugh about later.

Cisco leaned back against the computer station for support. “A few months ago…Dante got into a car accident. It wasn’t his fault; some drunk idiot was driving on the wrong side of the road and hit him head-on. And…” Cisco swallowed again. “…Dante died. Like, at the scene.”

Caitlin’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline, and Barry seemed shocked, too. Harry’s expression remained stony, but Cisco thought that he recognized a tiny flicker of sympathy. That was good—for him, anyway. 

“Right after it happened, I…I asked Barry to go back in time and save him. But Barry wouldn’t. He kept saying that it was too dangerous, that changing the past almost always creates more problems than it solves.”

“It does!” Barry said, throwing his hands in the hair. He sounded exasperated. “Did you not learn _ anything _ from Flashpoint?”

Cisco tried to catch his breath. “Well, yeah, funny you’d mention Flashpoint, because…because that’s what killed him. While Caitlin was Killer Frost…she told us all that, in the Pre-Flashpoint timeline…Dante was alive.” He looked at Barry, trying to sound stronger than he felt. “You messing with time killed my brother.”

Barry’s eyes widened at that accusation, but it was Caitlin who spoke up: “Cisco, you can’t possibly know that! Dante might have died regardless of what Barry did!”

“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll never know that, will we?!” Cisco snapped. He forced himself to reel it in, flexing his fingers as he did so. The wound on his right hand had completely healed by now—apparently, he hadn’t broken any bones, after all. “Look, I…I was angry. And I didn’t think it was fair that Barry was willing to alter history to save _ his _ dead family members, but he wouldn’t do it for anyone else.” He turned to Barry again. “Especially since saving your mom meant going back 15 years. You could have saved Dante by just re-doing a single day—or a few hours.”

“Last time I re-did a day and changed things, you and Dante both got kidnapped by Snart and Rory!” Barry said. “Snart wound up finding out my secret identity!”

“No, that was the _ first _ time you re-did a day!” Cisco countered. “ _ Last time _ you did it, you prevented us all from being killed by an immortal tyrant! What, do you just time travel so often that the details get fuzzy?!” In truth, _ he’d _ forgotten about that aspect of the Vandal Savage incident until just now. For someone who was so against altering the past, Barry sure did it with fair frequency.

“Cisco, both of those situations were accidents! I didn’t _ mean _ to time travel! Flashpoint was the only time I’ve altered the past on purpose, and that was such a colossal disaster that we agreed that I should never do it again!”

“Who the hell is ‘_ we _ ?!’” Cisco yelled, suddenly furious. “ _ You _ made the decision to create Flashpoint! And _ you _ decided that you’ll never do it again!” His hands balled into fists. “We’re supposed to be a _ team! _ And we’re supposed to take care of each other! Have you _ always _ been this selfish, or was that something that changed in Flashpoint, too?!”

Barry seemed completely taken aback by Cisco’s angry outburst. Caitlin and Harry looked shocked, too. Cisco wondered if he was getting through to any of them.

He inhaled shakily. “If you want for me to apologize for changing the past and saving Dante...you can go screw yourself. I’m _ not _ sorry I did it. You would have done the exact same thing for _ your _ family, and we know that because you already tried. Only difference is that _ I _ managed to do it without hurting everyone I care about.” He glared at Harry. “None of you would have even noticed that something was different if Harry and Jesse had just minded their own damn business!”

Harry scowled, probably because Cisco had just taken a shot at Jesse. Cisco wouldn’t have been surprised if Harry lobbed an insult (or a heavy object) in his direction. But before Harry could act, Barry spoke up:

“You’re right.”

Cisco turned to him. There was no way he’d heard correctly “What?”

“You’re…you’re right,” Barry said. His eyes were wet, like he was trying not to cry. “I…look, I don’t remember telling you that I wouldn’t save Dante. But…I believe you.” He exhaled. “I can’t be mad at you for wanting to save him. Because…yeah, that’s exactly what I was trying to do when I created Flashpoint.”

“Why’d you keep it a secret from us?” Caitlin asked Cisco. “I mean…how long have you be sitting on this?”

“Like, a week, maybe? And I…I _ couldn’t _ tell you,” Cisco said, rubbing his forearm with one hand. “Barry was _ super _ against it. I knew you guys would flip out if I told you that I changed the past. I just…I wanted to make it better. Dante died in such a stupid way, and you don’t even _ know _ how devastated my parents are— _ were _.” He sniffled. “I…I had so many regrets. Things were finally starting to be okay between us, and…and…”

That was all he managed to get out before Barry crossed the room and embraced him. “Hey, hey…calm down. It’s okay.”

_ Is it okay? _ Could _ it be okay? _

Cisco didn’t know what to say to that, so he simply wrapped his arms around Barry, too, returning the hug in kind. He sniffled again.

“Listen…we can’t just change the past every time something bad happens. It really is dangerous. Flashpoint caused a _ lot _ of problems. It’s a heavy burden to bear, and I don’t want for you to have to live with that on your conscience. So let’s just move forward from here, okay?”

Cisco nodded. “Okay.” And it was okay. _ They _ were okay. Thawne had been wrong; Barry _ did _ care about him. They _ were _ friends. For the first time in a week, Cisco felt himself fully relax.

But then Harry opened his mouth: “Ramon…_ how _ did you alter the past?”

Again, the question was a punch to Cisco’s gut. And, to his horror, he felt Barry pull away from him.

“…Yeah,” Barry said slowly, confusion clouding his features. “Cisco…how _ did _ you do it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cisco said, shooting Harry a _ shut-the-fuck-up _glare. He reached for Barry again, only to find that his best friend was now beyond his reach. 

“It _ does _ matter,” Harry said coldly. “Because I don’t think you did it alone.”

“What are you talking about? Of course he did.” Caitlin peered at Cisco, her brown eyes filled with concern. “We already know that you can vibe the past and the future, and you just learned how to do intra-dimensional breaches a little while ago. So, all you had to do was create breaches to different points in time. Right?” 

“That’s not how his powers work,” Harry interjected. “We have a handful breachers on my Earth now—they’ve come out of the woodwork since Zoom and Reverb stopped killing them all. They can _ see _ past events and potential futures, but they can’t travel there.”

Caitlin’s face fell. “Then…how?” she asked, and Cisco wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or just thinking out loud.

“In order to time travel, you need someone with a special set of skills,” Harry said. “Someone like—”

“—a speedster,” Barry finished. He backed away from Cisco a little more. The expression on his face, that mixture of fear and agitation, made Cisco feel like the temperature had gone up _ another _ 200 degrees. It was a wonder he hadn’t fainted. “Cisco… _ who _ helped you?”

Cisco swallowed. “I…Barry, _ you _ wouldn’t do it. I didn’t have a choice. I _ needed _ to save Dante, and—”

_ “Who helped you?!” _ Barry yelled. He was suddenly shouting, and while Harry continued to look resolute, Caitlin bit her lip. 

Cisco’s knees were shaking, and he balled his hands into fists again. Finally, he managed to choke out, “Thawne.”

Caitlin stood up. “Thawne?!” she said, sounding horrified. “Cisco, no! Please tell us you didn’t actually go to _ him _ for help!”

“No, he came to me!” Cisco said. “I—”

Barry’s eyes were enormous, like he was truly seeing Cisco for the first time. His mouth was opened slightly in shock.

The next thing Cisco knew, he was in a pipeline containment cell.

“Buh—Barry?” Cisco started, when he realized what had happened. He put his hands on the metal seam in the glass door, panic bubbling through him when he realized that he was locked in.

Barry stood on the other side of the glass, still giving Cisco that stunned, betrayed look. “You’re working with Thawne?”

“No, I’m not _ working _ with him,” Cisco said, trying to remain calm. “It was a one-time thing. He saved Dante as a favor to me. If you unlock the door, I can tell you—”

“He offered to do you a favor, and you accepted?!” Barry snarled. He slapped his palm on the glass, making Cisco recoil. “After _ everything _ he’s done?! Cisco, how could you be so _ stupid _?!”

“I _ knew _ that it was a bad idea, okay? But Barry, I had to do it.”

“You _ had _ to make a deal with the man who killed my mother?! With the man who killed _ you _?!”

“WELL, _ YOU _ KILLED MY BROTHER!” Cisco screamed in desperation, and this time, Barry took a step back. “What gives you the right to judge me?! Every time _ you _ screw up—every time you make a selfish decision—we’re all just supposed to forgive you. But when _ I _ screw up, you lock me up like a prisoner? What the hell is wrong with you?!” He was crying now, hot tears stinging his cheeks.

Barry inhaled sharply, glaring at him. “Flashpoint was a mistake. I’ve apologized for it over and over again. But _ you’re _ not sorry for teaming up with Thawne. You would have kept it a secret if we hadn’t confronted you about it. That’s the difference, here.”

“Barry—”

“I…I can’t look at you right now, okay?” Barry said. He turned around to walk away.

All of the sadness and shame pulsing through Cisco suddenly turned into rage. “I SHOULD BE THE ONE WHO CAN’T STAND TO LOOK AT _ YOU _! NOT AFTER WHAT YOU DID!” Without thinking, he smashed his fist against the glass.

Barry pivoted around, opening his mouth to speak.

“YOU WERE WILLING TO THROW CAITLIN AND ME AWAY!” Cisco screamed before Barry could say anything. He punched the glass again, this time hitting it on the metal seam. “THAWNE TOLD ME ABOUT FLASHPOINT! HE TOLD ME HOW YOU NEVER CHECKED ON US!”

Barry grimaced. “Cisco—” 

“YOUR _ PERFECT LIFE _ DIDN’T INCLUDE US!” He jerked his head around so that he was staring at the security camera in his cell. “DO YOU HEAR THAT, CAITLIN?! BARRY DOESN’T CARE! HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ANYONE BUT HIMSELF!” He was vaguely aware of how deranged he sounded, and his now-bleeding hand certainly didn’t help.

“Cisco, that’s enough!” Barry snapped.

“Was Thawne lying to me about that?!” Cisco snarled at him. “Tell me it was a lie, Barry. Tell me that you didn’t live in Flashpoint for three months without knowing whether Caitlin and I were even _ alive _.”

Barry didn’t answer. His eyes were wet again. 

“You can’t, can you?” Cisco said, his tone harsh and ugly. He gave the metal one more strong punch (his hand wept in protest) and then took a few steps back from the door. “So much for us being ‘best friends.’ So much for us being a ‘family.’”

The only answer Cisco received was the security door closing. Barry didn’t even glance back at him after hitting the button.

***

Caitlin came by a while later, long after Cisco had wrapped up his knuckles in the button-up he’d been wearing over his t-shirt. As soon as the security door opened, Cisco saw that Caitlin was holding a white bag stamped with the Big Belly Burger logo, as well as a fountain drink with a straw punched through the lid.

Relief flooded him. She’d obviously come to let him out and listen to his side of the story. Even when he and Barry were emotional wrecks, they could always count on Caitlin to be a voice of reason. “Hey, Cait,” he greeted. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Hey,” she said. Her voice sounded scratchy, like she’d been crying. “I brought you some lunch. And a book to help you pass the time. I’ll hand it to you through the hatch.”

She was referring to the little trapdoor that they’d added to the containment cells while they were retro-fitting them with concealed toilets. It was only about the size of a cereal box—just large enough to slip food and necessities to a prisoner in the cell.

“You’re…you’re _ not _ going to let me out?”

Caitlin exhaled sadly. “Cisco, Barry’s…really angry right now. He feels betrayed. It might be better if you stayed in here for a bit while he cools off.”

Cisco was incredulous. “Why do I have to stay in _ here _? If he doesn’t want to talk to me, then I’ll just go home. He knows I’m not dangerous!”

Caitlin stared at her shoes.

“He _ does _know that I’m not dangerous, right?” Cisco asked. “He doesn’t think—Caitlin, look at me!” When Caitlin matched his gaze, he said, “Why are you going along with this?!”

“I just think that this is best. This is best for everyone.”

“Do you think you _ owe _ him, or something?!” Cisco said. “Just because he covered for you with Julian? Caitlin, you were only _ in _ that mess because of Flashpoint! Just like I only had to get Thawne’s help because of Flashpoint!” He whirled his head in the direction of the cell’s security camera. “Cleaning up after a mess _ you _ made doesn’t make you a goddamn saint, Barry!”

“Cisco, please just stop!” Caitlin pleaded. “I don’t know what to think right now. I _ want _ for everything to be okay, but you teamed up with Eobard Thawne to change the timeline, and then you tried to hide it from us. How are we supposed to trust you after that?” She huffed a breath. “I brought you food and a book, but I’m not letting you out.”

“Caitlin…Caitlin, listen to me,” he said desperately. “What I said earlier…I wasn’t lying. Thawne told me that Barry didn’t check on us _ once _ while he was in the Flashpoint timeline. He _ doesn’t _ care about us as much as we care about him.”

“Cisco, do you want this or not?” Caitlin asked, shaking the bag. “I have to get back to the Cortex.”

He wanted to argue more, but he could tell from her tone that it would be pointless. “Fine,” Cisco said, his heart sinking. “Yeah, I guess I’ll take it.”

Caitlin slipped the bag and the drink through the trapdoor. Cisco peered inside and couldn’t help the weak smile that crossed his face when he saw two triple-triples and carton of fries nestled up against a thick paperback book—some pulpy sci-fi tale that he’d picked up the last time they went to a used book store together. It had been in his workshop for weeks, but he hadn’t gotten around to starting it yet.

“Thanks, Cait.”

“I’m…I’m really sorry about this Cisco,” Caitlin said, watching him through the glass. “And…I wish I could let you out.” She brushed some of her hair out of her face, and Cisco saw the power-dampening cuffs on her wrists.

Cisco looked away from her. “Yeah, sure.”

He’d hoped that she would at least leave the security door open, but—just like Barry—she tapped it closed on her way out. At least she had the decency to turn back and look at him while it was coming down.


	4. Chapter 4

Hours passed. Nobody else came to visit, and, locked in the pipeline, Cisco couldn’t hear anything that was going on the rest of the Labs. He wondered if H.R. had come back with Jesse and Wally, having successfully fulfilled his task of shielding “the children” from intra-team conflict. Joe and Iris had probably gotten there by now, as well. How would Barry explain to all of them what had happened? Would he paint Cisco as some scheming traitor who’d allied with their worst enemy for selfish reasons? Or would they all pity him for being weak enough to be susceptible to corruption?

The answer, of course, was the second one—the first option gave him way too much credit. 

They weren’t going to keep him in the pipeline forever, he realized. Eventually, _ someone _ would let him out. Probably Caitlin or Harry. Caitlin because she genuinely seemed to hate that he was in there; Harry because he knew why someone might do the wrong thing for the right reason.

(Harry had betrayed them, too, once. But they’d all forgiven him after only a few hours. Barry had even sympathized with him. Was what Cisco had done really so much worse than what Harry had done?)

Yes, eventually, someone would let him out, and _ maybe _ Barry would apologize for locking him up. Then they’d all expect for Cisco to apologize for working with Thawne and vow to do whatever he could to regain everyone’s trust. Things would be tense for a while, but given enough time, they’d go back to normal. Then they’d all live happily ever after, with Cisco conveniently never acknowledging that Barry Allen considered him disposable.

And, here was the tragic thing: that’s _ exactly _ what Cisco would do. He would do whatever it took (offer an apology that Barry wasn’t entitled to, bend over backwards to make everyone else feel better) to get back into their good graces. Because _ that _ was the kind of person he was.

** _“You deserve to feel good.”_ **

No, he didn’t. He would take whatever he could get and be damn grateful for the opportunity. It was why he’d hopped into bed with “Harrison Wells” in the first place. And it was why he kept running back every time Barry shoved him away and then decided he wanted to be friends, after all.

He _ couldn’t _ be alone. He _ needed _ for people to care about him. He would never, _ ever _ be enough, of course, and if someone could peek inside his head, they’d probably be disgusted with just how pathetic he truly was. But if he pretended that everything was okay, then at least he could delude himself into thinking that he mattered.

***

Eventually, Cisco dozed off, sitting on the floor of the containment cell with his back pressed up against the far wall. He woke up to the cell sliding forward towards the security door. When the metal barrier lifted, Cisco was expecting to see Caitlin, Harry, or even Barry. He was _ not _ expecting to see Thawne standing on the other side of the glass, wearing his yellow Reverse-Flash costume (with the cowl pulled down around his neck) and a neutral expression.

“What are you doing here?” Cisco asked, blinking his eyes in confusion. 

Thawne didn’t answer. Instead, he glanced around the structure, admiring his and Cisco’s handiwork. “You know, it’s funny: the first time I met you, we were on opposite sides of a pipeline cell.” He looked down at Cisco. “Back then, I was the one locked up, and you were on the outside looking in.”

“Yeah. How’s that for an ironic twist?” Cisco sighed. “So, this isn’t my apartment, which means that I don’t really have the authority to tell you to leave. But you’ve probably only got, like, a second or two before Barry comes in here, beats the crap out of you, and throws _ you _ in a cell, too. Something to consider.”

“Barry’s not here, Cisco. _ Most _ of Team Flash isn’t here, actually,” Thawne said, taking a few steps closer to the cell door. “Caitlin and that Earth-19 Harrison Wells were the only ones on guard duty. But don’t worry: I took care of them.”

_ That _ got Cisco’s attention. “Did you…are they _ okay _?!” he asked fearfully, scrambling to his feet.

Thawne laughed, and the sound filled the hallway, bouncing against the walls and scraping Cisco’s skin. “They’re fine. I only tranquilized them, the same way I did to you when I needed to take you to the Vanishing Point.” He shifted his weight. “That means we have a few minutes to talk.”

“What makes you think I want to talk to you?”

Thawne pursed his lips. “Really? We’re back to _ that _?”

“You were the one who said that some things never change,” Cisco retorted. He slid back down to a sitting position. “I’m just the idiot who keeps expecting them to. Case in point: I made a selfish decision and expected for people to give me a sliver of understanding. I should know by now that that’s _ only _ for Barry and the people _ he _ deems redeemable. Not for me.”

“You told Barry and the rest of the team that I helped you,” Thawne said. It was a statement, not a question. “And they threw you in here.”

“Yeah,” Cisco sighed. “That…that about covers it.” He looked at Thawne. “How’d you know? Or was that an educated guess?”

“You think I haven’t been watching and listening?” Thawne leaned against the doorway, sounding (and looking) a bit tired. “I built S.T.A.R. Labs from the ground up, my Cisco. You could scour this place with a toothbrush and still not find all of the cameras and microphones.”

“That’s…creepy,” Cisco said, frowning. He put his hands in his lap. “So, why’re you here? To taunt me while I’m stuck in here, the way I taunted you the first time we met?”

“I think that what _ I’m _ planning to do is a lot less important than what _ you’re _ planning to do.”

Cisco made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “Pretty much this.”

“I don’t follow.”

“They’re not gonna keep me in here forever, Thawne. So, all I can really do for now is wait. Once they decide to let me out, they’ll either kick me off the team or demand that I apologize and work to regain everyone’s trust. Either way, I’m the bad guy.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean, I committed the greatest sin of all: I upset Barry Allen. I pointed out what a hypocritical dick he is, and he didn’t like that.” He laughed, even though the situation wasn’t at all funny.

“You seem pretty resigned to this,” Thawne said, his eyebrows raised in intrigue.

“Oh, you missed the self-loathing and despair stage—that was a little while ago.” Cisco knocked his head against the wall. “I’ve come to grips with how much of a pathetic loser I am. Just business as usual, here.”

Thawne sighed. “May I suggest an alternative course of action?”

Cisco held out his hand to show Thawne his freshly-skinned knuckles. “Well, if it involves me hurting myself, then you can forget it, because I think that _ that _ just makes things worse. Barring that…what do you suggest?”

Abruptly, Thawne zipped over to the keypad and punched in a long sequence of numbers, letters, and command keys. With a mechanical hiss, the cell door opened. “We get the hell out of here and actually work towards changing our fates. I’ve got a couple associates who’d just _ love _ to meet you.”

_ Of course he has a master override, _ Cisco thought to himself. Slowly, he got to his feet and took a few tentative steps out of the cell. The difference in the temperature and air quality was immediately noticeable. “Uh, thanks,” Cisco said. He leaned against the security door frame. “When you say ‘change our fates’, what do you mean?”

“I mean just that. The way I see it, you could stay here and always be subservient to The Flash. Or you could take charge. Do what you want. Actually create a better life for yourself and the people you care about. And, I haven’t even gotten to the best part.”

“Which is?”

Thawne closed the gap between them and laid a kiss on Cisco’s mouth—hard, deep, all-consuming, bodies pressed together and lungs burning from lack of air. When Thawne finally released him, Cisco was left feeling just a little dizzy.

“We’ll be together,” Thawne said. “You’ll be with someone who actually, truly loves you.” He brought Cisco’s injured hand to his lips and kissed the damaged skin. “_ That’s _ what you want, isn’t it? More than anything else?”

And just like that, Cisco was standing on a cliff again. Behind him, familiarity and a kind of banality that could pass for happiness under the right circumstances. In front of him…well, he couldn’t see in front of him. But wasn’t that the point?

Honestly, what was the point of doing _ anything _ if nothing ever changed as a result?

“I’m assuming you have a plan?” Cisco said.

Thawne smirked. “Have you ever heard of The Spear of Destiny?”

***

Since the last time he’d been to the Vanishing Point, Thawne—_ Eobard _; that was going to take some getting used to—had apparently recruited two more people to his cause: Malcolm Merlyn and Leonard Snart. Bizarrely, this version of Snart was from 2014. Thawne had snatched him up after Snart got his hands on the original cold gun, but long before the rogue had killed his own father, joined up with the Legends, and—somewhere along the way—stopped being such a dick. 

Snart was actually the key to Cisco making a good first impression on all of Thawne’s allies; Thawne had barely finished introducing Cisco as “the man who built the cold gun” when Cisco wheeled back and hit Snart with a concussive vibe blast that tossed him into the air like a rag doll and laid him out flat on his back, coughing and groaning. His gun skittered across the floor, leaving him without a weapon as Cisco calmly walked over and stood by his side.

“Hey,” Cisco said, “so, I’m gonna let you keep the cold gun because you’re pretty good at using it. But if you _ ever _ touch any of my tech again without my permission, I’ll shatter your entire nervous system without breaking a sweat.” He’d shamelessly stolen that line from Reverb, but Reverb was dead. His dialogue was officially fair game.

Cisco had expected for Snart to sneer at him or come back with a threat of his own, but to his surprise, Snart just chuckled. “Okay. Fair enough.”

“Glad we understand each other,” Cisco replied. “Oh, and thanks for helping Eobard with the zombie speedster. He told me that you made quick work of that thing.”

Snart smirked. “I heard that freezing the zombie speedster was _ your _ idea, kiddo.” He titled his head. “Any chance your boyfriend’s into sharing?”

It took Cisco a second to understand what he was asking. When he did, he whipped his head around to where the other men were standing. Darhk and Merlyn seemed delighted by Cisco’s display of power, and Thawne was watching Cisco like he’d never before seen anything so extraordinary.

Cisco turned back to Snart. “No. No chance at all, dude.”

“Pity,” Snart murmured, before hoisting himself back onto his feet.

He didn’t think that Thawne had heard Snart’s question, or even had an inkling that Snart had expressed an attraction to him. Regardless, though, it wasn’t long before Thawne was gently shepherding Cisco away from the rest of the group. Their final destination was a room that reminded Cisco a bit of the dorm where he’d slept during his freshman year of college: mostly bare and utilitarian, with a queen-sized bed, a desk, and little else.

“I know it’s not exactly the mansion I had back in Central City,” Thawne explained. He was standing behind Cisco, his front to Cisco’s back, and as he spoke, he wrapped his arms around Cisco and held him close. “But it’s a temporary arrangement. At the very least, it works as a place to…sleep.”

“Really? You want to go to sleep now?” Cisco said with a laugh.

Thawne tightened his grip on Cisco. “No. Not right now.”

This time, they were not interrupted by an ominous beeping noise—or anything else. Cisco allowed himself to imagine that there was nothing in the world but the two of them. He wouldn’t think about the life he’d left behind, or the uncertain future he faced, or any of the heroic ideals he’d tossed in the trash in order to “ride off into the sunset” with a supervillain. Thawne’s touch, Thawne’s taste, and Thawne’s scent—_ that _ was real. That was what he wanted. _ All _ he wanted.

It wasn’t easy, especially considering the way that Cisco’s hand still hurt from banging it on the cell door and how his anxiety usually bubbled close to the surface, anyway. Fortunately, once Thawne decided that Cisco—_ his _ Cisco—had been teased and tantalized enough, he hooked Cisco's ankles over his shoulders and started fucking him the way he used to before the particle accelerator exploded (and he’d begun pretending to be paralyzed). And at _ that _ point, Cisco almost forgot his own name.

No, his apprehension and self-doubt didn’t come back until they were curled up together in the afterglow, with Thawne stroking Cisco’s hair and Cisco leaning back into his warmth.

“We need to help Caitlin,” Cisco sighed, breaking the silence. “She’s turning into Killer Frost, and she doesn’t want to. If we could take her powers away, she’d be happy.” He turned to Thawne. “I…I want for her to be happy.”

“Of course,” Thawne said, tucking a lock of Cisco’s hair behind his ear. “Caitlin’s your friend. I was actually thinking of bringing Ronnie back for her, since he’s _ another _ innocent victim in all of this.”

“We can do that?”

“Of course we can.” He kissed Cisco’s forehead. “Once we have The Spear, we can do _ anything _.”

“Okay. And…what about everyone else? Iris and Joe and Wally. And H.R., too, I guess.” He sat up in bed. “I don’t want for _ them _ to get hurt. God, I don’t even know if I want for _ Barry _ to get hurt…or die. I just…I—”

“Shhhh,” Thawne said, and he sat up, too, so that he could kiss Cisco’s forehead again. “We’ve got time to figure out what we’ll do with Barry—no need to make a decision now. And we’ll definitely make accommodations for everyone else.” He leaned back. “Maybe I could take Wally on as an apprentice. Fate seems determined for him to be a speedster, so he could make a fine protégé for me.”

Something ugly swirled in Cisco’s gut. He gripped the bedsheet in his fingers. “I thought _ I _ was your protégé.”

“I meant a speedster protégé. You’re something else entirely. Something infinitely more important.” He paused, and suddenly, his mouth curled into a smirk. “Oh…are you jealous? Worried that I might be thinking of replacing you?”

Cisco grunted. “No.”

“Not even a little bit?” He still sounded amused.

Cisco got on his hands and knees. Naked, he crawled over to Thawne, feeling a bit like a predatory animal as he zeroed in on the man’s pale skin. He climbed into Thawne’s lap and, for a moment, just stared down at him. Thawne’s pupils were blown wide, both with lust and fascination, and as he and Cisco gazed at one another, Cisco could swear that he felt Thawne’s pulse quicken under his fingers. 

Finally, Cisco leaned in close and whispered—with just a hint of teeth—into Thawne’s ear: “I think I’m starting to believe that I’m irreplaceable.”

And Eobard Thawne—the Reverse-Flash, the man in yellow, the person who haunted Barry Allen’s dreams—smiled. “Yes. You definitely, _ definitely _ are.” He pulled Cisco down, bringing them both back to Earth. “Now, get some sleep, my love. We’ve got a lot to do if we’re going to accomplish our goals.”

Cisco settled in, letting himself be cuddled and adored.

_ **“You deserve to feel good.”** _

_ **“You deserve to feel good.”** _

_ I deserve to feel good. _

He already knew that time worked differently at the Vanishing Point than it did anywhere else. But he got the feeling that, after decades of living in the shadows of other people…_ his _ time had finally come.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always felt that, if Cisco was _ever_ going to turn evil, he would have done it after learning that Dante's death may have been caused by Flashpoint. I really, REALLY think that the writers let Barry off easy for that one by simply having Cisco forgive him completely during the "Invasion!" crossover. Just my two cents... 
> 
> Oh, but speaking of Barry: PLEASE keep in mind this story is told from Cisco's POV, and Cisco is an emotionally distraught 20-something who's in the throes of being seduced by an older, EXTREMELY manipulative man. This fic is NOT supposed to be anti-Barry or whatever, and I don't actually think he's as much of a jerk as he probably comes across in this fic.
> 
> There was gonna be full-blown smut in this story, but...ehhhh, I ended up cutting those pieces out because I didn't finish them (and this goddamn thing was already long enough, anyway). I will PROBABLY end up posting them separately in the form of one E-Rated vignette "sequel."
> 
> Again, this story was written for Terrie for the 2019 DCCW RarePair Swap. Terrie, I hope you liked reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
> 
> ...And that's all from me! If you've read this far, PLEASE consider writing a comment, since I always, ALWAYS love receiving feedback!


End file.
